


Formatting Errors

by anurasally (Angelcroc)



Category: Half-Life, half life but the ai is self aware
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Being Possessed but like, Benrey is just trying to learn some stuff about being a people, Friendship is the answer to all problems, Gen, Gordon Freeman is an AI, Gordon Freeman is sick of being an AI and would prefer not to be thank you very much, Gordon is just trying to be A Real Boy, Interdimensional Holes, Invasive Data Mining, Jaden is so spacey they barely notice anything, Mariko please come help, Multiplayer au, Psychological Horror, Surprise Canon, Tommy is a surprise mess even if he acts like he has his shit together, Unreliable Narrator, Unreliable Narrators plural honestly please take anything these people say with a grain of salt, When you get interdimensional holes involved things get screwier than usual, brain viruses, by yourself, eldritch horror, god i guess i'm so sorry crow i've ruined your perfectly good ocs look at them they have anxiety, i fucken guess i did NOT set out to write that, non-canon, stuck in VR, they are all profoundly neurotic, unmedicated adhd and depression, unreality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24594271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelcroc/pseuds/anurasally
Summary: Gordon wakes Benry up.Benry isn't sure why this gives him such a sense of dread. He's always a been heavy sleeper, but there's no reason to get all freaked out about it.(Big unreality cw incoming. I love stories about people getting trapped in video games, what can I say?This started as Multiplayer AU but, uh. Has mutated severely! Go check out thecryptidcorvid on tumblr for what these characters are supposed to be like when not subject to my awful whims. I'm playing their backstories and personalities by ear so things are pretty fucken different! The basic summary is that Gordon is the only AI, and the rest are roleplayers doing their best to roleplay.Strap in. Things are gonna get weird. Eldritch glitch horror and invasive data-mining weird. And leave comments if you like, I eat them for power.)
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 171
Kudos: 598





	1. Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [getting high on humans](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24290701) by [sunlit_tea_leaves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlit_tea_leaves/pseuds/sunlit_tea_leaves). 



> Just a lil thing I wrote for the multiplayer au by thecryptidcorvid on tumblr. If you don't know what that is, it's basically a roleswap with gordon as the only ai, benry as the protag, and the science team as backup.
> 
> Banged this out in about an hour so It's pretty rough in certain spots, but I wanted to get it out. I have more written, but I don't wanna post it until I'm happy with it, so this is a oneshot for right now. Cheers.
> 
> edit: as you may have noticed; no longer a oneshot! I was tempted to keep the first chapter separate from the rest, because I thought the execution worked okay on its own, but the more I write, the bigger and weirder the concepts get. Hope you guys have as much fun reading as I am writing. We need all the dopamine we can get in this hell world.

Benry woke up to someone shaking him violently. His eyes weren’t even fully open before he realized who it was. The orange gave it away. Not to mention the shouting.

“Benry! Wake up! I can’t find the others.”

“Huhnh? Wha?” He slapped the AI’s hands away from his shoulders. He sat up slowly and blinked several times to dislodge the crust from his eyes. Normally, he’d make some joke, comment on Gordon touching his chest, but, for some reason… he didn’t want to. There was an odd, uneasy atmosphere, a fuzziness in his head, but Gordon didn’t seem to notice. He was flailing about like usual.

“I swear, if you–”

Benry wasn’t much of a morning person at the best of times, and right now, it felt as if he was getting lag in his own brain. 

“I don’t—What are you talking about?” Benry mumbled. Gordon groaned in frustration. Benry idly remembered that, at some point, Coomer had pulled up Gordon’s console to show him his train of thought. His neuroticism had made a lot more sense after that. Anyone would be anxious, with all that bouncing around their skull.

“The science team. I can’t find them.”

Awareness came slowly to Benry, in chunks.

“You woke me up?” Something about this fact made him sick to his stomach.

“Yeah, of course I woke you up—EVERYONE’S GONE. And I know you have some, some freaky powers, so it’s probably your fault. Where’d they go.”

“Wha?”

“YOU—”

Benry, not for the first time, regretted how often he feigned ignorance to piss feetman off. Sure, it was funny, but in moments like this, moments where he really had no fucking clue, it just made Gordon madder. At the moment, Gordon’s face had twisted into an expression of sheer close-to-crying frustration. His jaw was so clenched, teeth grinding… Benry could almost see his throat vibrate.

“—I PROMISE I will get you those feet pics.”

Benry suddenly jolted. He’d been staring so hard at Gordon’s face he hadn’t heard a single word he’d said, but the phrase ‘feet pics’ knocked him out of his stupor.

“Oh, word?” His voice was joking, but his face felt hot, his hands sweaty. Somewhere far away, his gut rolled in discomfort.

“Yes. If you use your, your weird alien powers to find my–OUR friends—I will get you the feet pics.”

“…Yeah. Okay. Gimme a sec.”

Benry suddenly realized that he had no idea where he was. But—No, this was Black Mesa. He was in Black Mesa. He had to be, right? Gordon was here. He was here. Black Mesa. There wasn’t anything else out there. Right?

Panic gripped at his throat. What the hell was the MATTER with him? He asked himself that a lot anyway, but right now, he really wished he knew. Benry touched the floor. Yep, concrete. But somehow that just made him even more frazzled. He… shouldn’t feel concrete? Why not? It was right there. What the hell was going on? His hand went to his face, traced the lines around his eyes, yep, still shaped the same way he remembered, and—he could rub his eyes. That was wrong for some reason. He had no idea why it was wrong. It just was.

He was… there were crates. It was Black Mesa, of course there were crates. Yeah. And there was a pigeon in the rafters. There was a door, with a keypad scanner. Okay. Okay, yeah, that sounded right. It was there. He could see it.

“Hey, uh, didn’t think I’d be asking this, but—Are you okay?”

“Huh????” Benry startled. Gordon was staring at him. How long had he been staring? Even weirder, Benry’s response hadn’t pissed him off. He just looked… worried? Why? Benry suddenly realized he’d been rocking slightly, running his hands over, over…

His face. He wasn’t wearing a headset.

Of course he wasn’t. He never had? He had, had a helmet, yeah, but.

But.

Static.

It was so hard to think. Worse than the usual fog in his head. Something was really, really wrong. He just wished he could figure out what the hell it was.

“BENRY.” Gordon’s shout briefly jolted him out of the rising swell of panic. Benry knew he should have been grateful for the reprieve, but instead, he just felt angry. Angry at himself, which made him angry at Gordon. He wasn't usually a panicky guy. He was a chill, cool dude. He didn’t freak out. And right now, he was acting like a big baby idiot in front of his bro. Cringe.

“Yo, shut up,” He hissed. Gordon flinched away slightly, but it didn't take him too long to set his jaw, cross his arms, and open his mouth for more yelling. Benry didn’t give him the chance.

“You, you shouldn’t—You shouldn’t have woken me up. We’re heavy sleepers. Yeah? Waking, waking me up. Not good.”

“Benry–”

“Dddddddd. Don’t call me that.” Something about his name was making him feel worse and he didn’t know what it was. The whole not knowing thing was starting to get to him. Even though he had a lot of experience with it, he never was a huge fan of forgetting important things. He huffed slightly in frustration, loud and crackly.

“Oooookay.” Gordon said, giving him a quizzical look. They stared at eachother silently for a few awkward moments. Benry wished the silence would continue. Not thinking was easier than thinking.

“…So, why shouldn’t I wake you up.” Benry blinked. Oh, it was his turn to talk. Fuck. Okay. As usual when he didn’t know what to say, he just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"'Cause it’s rude?”

Gordon looked like he wanted to launch into an angry rant, but he stopped himself. Instead, he stared Benry straight in the eyes. His expression made Benry squirm. It was… mad, sure, but there was more to it. Resignation? Whatever it was, Benry didn’t like it. Fuck, this was hard.

“No. What’s the real reason.”

“That’s—That’s the real reason.” Benry sounded more unsure than ever. Gordon’s gaze had him pinned. He squirmed in place. Why did he feel so guilty? That was the reason, wasn’t it? Or--no. Couldn't be. The actual answer felt like it SHOULD have been obvious, but it was slipping his mind. Gordon had been quiet for too long, and something about the awful, heavy silence forced more words out of Benry’s mouth.

“I, I mean—You woke me up, right?” Benry stammered. Gordon nodded. He was sat on the floor, legs crossed. And he was sitting still. That was wrong too. He was always so animated. Like a clown. That was why Benry was always staring at him.

“A-And. I’m not supposed to be awake right now. So I think I can’t remember stuff right.” Gordon pursed his lips in thought, but nodded again.

“So. I’m in Black Mesa, which, not supposed to be here–” Gordon let out a little snort at the phrasing. Oh. Right. Passports were the last thing on Benry’s mind right now.

“Not supposed to be wearing this.” He pulled at the fabric of his uniform. The rough jumpsuit material felt the same as usual. Benry felt another pang of fear. Gordon said nothing.

“And I can’t, I can’t–”

Benry trembled violently. Gordon said nothing.

“I can’t break character?”

Gordon’s eyes were impossibly orange.

Then he smiled, and said:

“Hurts, right?”

—

Jaden woke up.

Jaden did not show up for work the next day.


	2. Boundary Testing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaden steps back into VR with no hesitation at all like a cool dude because they aren't a lil baby who gets scared of dumb creepypasta nightmares and promptly proceeds to fuck it all up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ringing dinner bell* come get yall juice
> 
> This fic is frenry but things get worse before they get better because no one can communicate healthily and they both assume the worst of eachother like nine times out of ten. and by frenry i think i mean they become friends?? god... is this a ship fic? nah, probably not...
> 
> I said chapter 2 would be gordon POV but there was a lot of shit to do, so. I promise there will be gordon POV very soon. i love gordon freeman you guys you have no idea. im a lesbian and all but dilf rights i respect MY stressed buff protagonist dad
> 
> This one isn't quite as heavy as chapter 1, there's not really too much unreality stuff, but there's still glitch stuff, so. Be warned. ALSO THECRYPTIDCORVID DREW THE FINAL SCENE OF THE LAST CHAPTER AND I'M SURE YOU'VE ALREADY SEEN IT IF YOU'RE READING THIS BUT IT'S REALLY GREAT SO https://thecryptidcorvid.tumblr.com/post/620411687199260672/hey-yall-please-read-formatting-errors-by
> 
> AU continues to be theirs, btw, go shoot em a follow if u like :D
> 
> And seriously, THANK YOU for the comments?? I reread basically all of them over and over again for motivation and power. Especially thank you if you've written HLVRAI fanfic yourself; I've been reading it nonstop for the last couple of days so recognizing the usernames complimenting my shit gave me more dopamine than I've ever had in my entire life. 
> 
> Blog's over at anurasally.tumblr.com, shoot me some questions or w/e if you like. I couldn't shut up about this shit if I wanted to.

It took Jaden several days to work up the nerve to play modded HLVR again.

See, they’d gotten really, really engrossed in Kirby Canvas Curse. They had been going through the entire Kirby backlog for a few months, and had been impressed at the amount of variety in not just in the gameplay, but in the aesthetics. The designers had really known their stuff, even for lesser entries in the series, such as Squeak Squad. God they were so ready to get to Epic Yarn. Jaden loved Epic Yarn. 

Tap. Tap. There was the medal.

…

Eventually they had had to leave the apartment to go to work. Rent was due, and they couldn’t leave Josh hanging like that. They even kinda liked their job, lately? They’d gotten a gig QA testing some mediocre cashgrab free to play battle royales, and they were good at it. Decent, at least. If there was one thing Jaden was good for, it was breaking the hell out of games. Their instincts never followed what the developer intended. 

All in all, things were good. Great, even. They were doing what they needed to do. Compared to a lot of periods in Jaden’s life, this was perfect. Working at Taco Bell in particular came to mind. Rushing through orders and getting yelled at by customers was not Jaden’s strong suit. 

… 

They were having trouble sleeping lately. 

Every time they got comfortable, eyes closed, drifting off, there was this feeling of drowning, drowning, drowning… then, eventually, they’d wake up from a restless, uneasy sleep.

It wasn’t just that, either. The confused, anxious feeling that had accompanied the nightmare hung over them. Like… like a bad metaphor. Ugh.

They couldn’t believe this. They couldn’t believe that they were dumb enough to let Gordon Freeman, protagonist of the video game Half Life, scare them out of hanging out with their friends. 

Jaden couldn’t even remember most of the dream. It had faded as soon as they’d woken up, and the details they could remember weren’t even scary. Being stuck in their stupid jokey security guard persona they’d made up on the fly. The feeling of concrete, the helmet. How things seemed to pop in and out as they thought about them. Cold eyes with a nasty glint in them. 

Now that they thought about it, they’d apparently spent most of the fucking dream looking at Gordon’s face, because that was basically all they could remember. Because their stupid persona had a crush. Jaden tried not to linger on this any longer.

And… Jaden hadn’t forgotten, what. What, Gordon had. Said. The implications there were.

Even at the best of times, Jaden felt slightly out of sync with their body. As if god had fucked up when making them and accidentally installed their consciousness slightly to the left of their head, instead of in their brain. Or behind their head. Sometimes they imagined seeing themselves from behind, like a third person shooter. 

In other words, they were already pretty insane, so they really, really, reallyreallyreally did not need this mind fuck dream horseshit on top of it making it worse.

It just kinda pissed Jaden off that they were letting the dream get to them this much, okay??? They couldn’t get wigged out over what people said in dreams. ESPECIALLY not virtual people. Jaden knew as soon as they went in, got it over with, got over themselves, they’d be fine. They just needed a minute, okay? A mental health break. 

Yeah. From a videogame.

This was so stupid. 

Unfortunately, none of Jaden’s friends seemed thrilled that their multiplayer game was being held up for reasons Jaden couldn’t explain. The idea of admitting, hey, I had a scary dumbass creepypasta nightmare and now I’m too scared to keep going… it just wasn’t happening. It was as impossible as trying to lift their apartment complex. 

Tommy was the only one who actually seemed maybe okay with not playing anymore, but Jaden knew it was just because he was worried about them. He wanted to play as much as the others. Xavier just really wanted to see what the hell plotline the game generated next with their inputs. And Mariko…

Seemed angry about it, somehow. Like they were leaving Gordon alone to rot. And honestly, yeah, Jaden felt guilty about that too.

At the same time.

_Hurts, right?_

The idea of going back into the virtual world—of talking to Gordon—Made them want to throw up.

Jaden thought the line had been delivered with relish. It was kinda hard to remember the specifics of the tone when the words had been the only thing they could think about. It was probably relish.

...Coulda been ketchup.

ANYWAY. Jaden had gone quiet. Said nothing to anyone for a few days. Immersed themselves in a game that had like, cute waddle dees, and not weird sentient AI. And now, Jaden was taking a moment to compose themselves before they opened discord again. Sure enough, there was the pile of worried, unread direct messages. Instead of opening any of them, Jaden went into the group chat.

**Jaden: fuck are you guys ready to play some half life because i am ready to play some half life**

The previous conversation their friends had been having vanished as they all asked where the hell Jaden had been. Whoops. Right. Friends. They worried about them. God dammit Jaden really wanted to weigh in on that discourse, too. The chat had been arguing over whether or not Naruto and Sasuke could have made it work in a better written manga. 

**Jaden: yo im fine okay iwas hanging out with my real friends**

****

****

**Jaden: kirby and meta knight**

**Jaden: btw you know im for gay rights but im sorry that relationship would never be healthy ever so**

**Xavier: You just don’t like it because it reminds you of you and Freeman, huh?**

**Mariko: Ah, young love!**

Oh, god. Jaden could barely handle THIS when they WEREN’T losing their marbles over panic dreams.

**Jaden: uhhhhhh no that doesn’t even make sense there’s a lot more layers to this shit than just blue guy orange guy**

****

****

**Jaden: i don’t like it because i think sasuke deserves better than that clingy lil shit**

**Xavier: Sure.**

God, Jaden hated that. Xavier had this awful habit of capitalizing and punctuating his sentences. It made everything sound annoyed or sarcastic. To be fair, most of the time it was, but still. 

**Jaden: are we playing?? i know it’s a little late but w/e i’ve left you guys hanging long enough**

****

****

**Mariko: Yeah, sure. My fight was canceled anyway. Other chick got sick or something. Maybe she just wasn’t ready to face ME >:)**

Oh. Right. Other people had other schedules that didn’t involve sitting in a dark room tapping little pink balls for three days. You couldn’t just ask three people, hey, you ready to play VR for several hours without some prep time. Jaden felt a little guilty at overlooking it. Just another thing on the big ol pile labeled “Shit I forgot.”

**Xavier: I’m down. If I stare at this thesis paper for any longer it’ll spontaneously combust from my rage and contempt.**

****

****

**Tommy: Are you sure you’re okay??? :( You seemed really upset**

Ugh, of course Tommy would notice.

**Jaden: I’m fine it was just some irl stuff. no big deal**

****

****

**Tommy: Well… okay!! Let’s get back in then! :)**

Lying like this was second nature and Jaden didn’t feel bad about it anymore. No one needed to hear the truth. The idea of being like ‘oooh, I couldn’t break character and it was scaaary,’ was cringe as hell. 

Jaden booted up the game and started the call. They greeted their friends and found themselves relaxing a little. It didn’t even really matter what the others were saying; just the sound of their voices was kind of grounding. Was that lame? It FELT lame. 

Now they just had to put on the headset.

It took them more time than they’d like to admit. 

Their hands were not shaking whatsoever. They were just sweating because their computer tower was too damn hot. It was making the room warm. They really had to get the fans replaced. Maybe if they repeated this enough times, it’d become true.

When Jaden finally worked up the guts to put the headset on, The VR hub room faded in and they relaxed somewhat. They hadn’t been sucked through the screen like a bad 90s cartoon, so, that was one point of anxiety disproven. 

As everyone got into game, they muted discord in favor of the proximity mics. Gordon couldn’t hear them otherwise, and besides, it was better for RP purposes. Black Mesa loading in was also surprisingly reassuring once Jaden got over the initial wash of fear. It was just polygons, bro. Polygons Jaden had seen hundreds of times at that. No problem. They were good. The rest of the team was here and there were jumping puzzles to do. 

“Hello, Benry!”

Jaden jumped. Their awareness that everyone had seen that flinch felt like a physical weight around their neck and they refused to let it show any further. Christ, Jaden hoped they wouldn’t be jumping at shadows all session. Just gotta play it cool and hope that covered the nervousness. Cool as a cucumber.

“Sup, feetman.” Not funny enough. “Lick any, uh. Lick any doorknobs recently?”

Jaden kept aloof and brushed right past him, but they caught Gordon’s sunny smile shifting into mild irritation. Jaden tried not to feel too pleased with themselves. It wasn’t that it was fun to bug Gordon. It was because the big weird smile just didn’t suit him at all. Didn’t fit his face.

“Ugh. Don’t know what I was expecting.” Gordon moaned and scratched at his beard in a way Jaden found impossible not to notice. For a terrifying moment, they thought that the feeling had come back, They were stuck again, until they realized, nah, their heart pounding like that was just how Gordon made them feel sometimes. Normal. 

It did not take Jaden very long to realize that this was also bad. 

Jaden shoved their confused feelings down as deep as they’d go. Instead, they gave Gordon a shitty little grin. They were proud of that; they had downloaded a model and worked out a hot key to shift the guard’s face from apathetic to amused, and had been surprised to find that Gordon actually reacted to it.

“Expecting anything outta me was your first mistake. Dumbass.”

Jaden watched with palpable amusement as Gordon swore. Yeah, okay, it was also pretty fun to tease him. Jaden had done some shit in GTA, this was way lighter in comparison. Testing boundaries was just what they did. It was what they were good at. And Gordon Freeman wasn’t real anyways. So. They refused to feel guilty about it. 

...

Jaden was just making sure things were the same as usual, okay? Making sure Gordon wasn’t gonna... they didn’t even know what Gordon was going to do. That was the scary part.

“Yeah, obviously, I see that now. You’d rather die than say anything worth hearing, huh. Asshole.” Gordon muttered something under his breath, but Jaden got the gist. 

“Now, Gordon, we’re all professionals here! Be civilized! That’s Mr. Asshole to you!”

Jaden didn’t feel jealous when Mariko got an honest to goodness chuckle out of Gordon. Coomer always got the benefit of the doubt where Benry didn’t. 

As the game session went on, Jaden relaxed more and more. Things were normal. They’d played Half Life so many times, they could do most of these jumping puzzles in their sleep, VR or no VR. In fact, the game was so familiar, Jaden wasn’t really doing much at all; their other friends who’d never played Half Life could solve the puzzles while Jaden fake-tapped at virtual computers, shot randomly, snapped some pictures, and played with the Wowozela. Sometimes, the group needed them to do something just because they were player one and certain events were scripted to need them, and they had to hang around in the general area or things would despawn, but for the most part, things were chill. Their self-consciousness faded as Jaden just played a video game and dicked around with their friends. 

This relaxation was partially due to the fact that Gordon was a bundle of nerves. Meaning, normal. Not evil or scary. Just kinda twitchy and resigned to the fact his friends were murderous psychopaths who shot every other scientist/clone in the head for sport. Gordon seemed less reset-happy today than the previous sessions too, which, good. If Jaden never had to see that blank smile again it’d be too soon. Maybe it was easier because Gordon wasn’t really interacting with the plot so much anymore, now that they were out of the intro sequence? Fewer places for the script to act up. 

Jaden still made a point of being wherever the group was going first. This was partially to give stuff time to spawn, and partially because they wanted to surprise Gordon. They’d been sitting on this crate for like five minutes, waiting for the rest of the team to catch up.

Gordon opened the door and saw them. There was a brief pause. Gordon’s mouth hung slightly open and his eyes squinted in nervous anticipation as he tried to figure out whether or not it was just some random security guard or his ol friend Benry. Jaden had to admit, it was pretty hilarious.

“Hey, uh. Little slow there, huh?” Jaden couldn’t help but grin when Gordon’s mouth snapped shut and he rubbed his temples. 

“It’s fine, it’s whatever, I can wait for you. I’ll wait however long you need.”

“What the hell is the MATTER with you today?!”

Huh?

“What?”

“You’re being a total fucking dick. Worse than usual. I can’t BELIEVE I was thinking about APOLOGIZING for the other night.”

What?

What? 

...

What?

“Huh?” 

“Yeah, I know! Stupid of me!”

“Wh?”

“STOP SAYING THAT. Cut the SHIT. What is the matter with you!”

Jaden opened their mouth to make some joke, some comment about being an anomaly, but nothing came out. Just a small huff of air that crushed into distortion over their shitty mic. Emotions they couldn’t name were building and rising, but shame was at the forefront. The guilt was crushing, but they couldn't show it at all. Their model didn't have the expressions. They didn't have the words. 

Gordon’s expression hardened. Gordon nodded a little as if he was confirming something to himself. Jaden had no idea what it could be. They had no idea what Gordon was thinking. They didn't know anything. They didn’t like it. They didn’t like this at all. Where the hell was everyone else?!

Gordon gave a grim little smile. The smile only grew bigger, showed more teeth when Jaden physically recoiled. There was a humor to that look. Not one Jaden liked. Not one drop of sympathy in it. 

“Oh, I get it. You’re just mad I got one over on you. Shoe’s on the other foot, huh? Huh? Not so fun now, is it?”

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Something must have showed in their voice, because this time, Jaden’s denial just made Gordon lean in, step forward. Jaden about tripped over a pile of clothes when they physically stepped back. Right. VR.

“I think you do. I think you know exactly what I’m talking about." Gordon's look of triumph just grew more nasty. More manic. He was gesticulating wildly, now, pacing the room. Jaden moved to get up, to clip through the wall and bail, but Gordon's next words froze them in place.

"You've been sleeping badly lately, huh? Right? I see you."

No, he didn't. He couldn't. It wasn't--

"Your body's right there, on the ground. Shivering. And it looks scared shitless, did you know that? Did you? You look like you're gonna cry. You have feelings too, ASSHOLE."

Finally, FINALLY, Jaden managed to croak out a few words. Not the ones they really needed to say, though. Not an apology. Maybe it was for the best. Any apology they gave right now would have sounded insincere, just meant to keep Gordon from hurting them.

"But... but the game's off." It sounded weak even as they said it.

"Ooooh, yeah. Yeah, see, usually when you sleep, there’s the voi--”

Gordon’s face went blank. A reset. 

Oh, thank god. Oh, thank fucking god. They were safe. Jaden was safe. They threw their head back slightly and gave a sharp intake of breath.

Gordon’s face did not resolve into the empty smile. 

Instead, Jaden watched in horror as Gordon’s eyes widened, then narrowed. His pupils shrank. The muscles in his neck tensed as if he were lifting a very heavy object, and his teeth ground so loudly, so violently, that Jaden was absolutely certain you could hear it outside their headphones if you were in the room with them. Gordon’s model was glitching, jittering, stuttering as if it were trying to pull itself apart.

When Gordon spoke, there was no mistaking the anguish or contempt.

“RELIEVED, HUH?”

Jaden wanted to defend themselves. Wanted to say they hadn’t meant it, they didn't LIKE it when Gordon reset. But they couldn’t. Nothing was coming out. Nothing but static.

Gordon seemed to come to a decision. The glitches in his model began to subside. 

“Look, just. Let’s just keep going. But we are NOT friends. Do NOT pull that shit with me again.”

There was silence.

“I’m going to take that as a yes.” 

Gordon turned and walked out of the room.


	3. Rumination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon Freeman takes inventory of what has happened so far. Gordon Freeman remembers events slightly differently. Gordon Freeman is a videogame protagonist, and being programmed this way comes with its own set of quirks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are. Gotta say, this one really flew out of me. Roleswaps fun as hell yo. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Might fuck around and make myself a Gordon Freeman ask blog tbh.
> 
> There is something weirdly delightful to me about giving Jaden the normal gamer they/them pronouns and giving Benry the fucked up eldritch monster he/him pronouns. Breaks stereotypes.
> 
> Also are you ever writing fanfiction and you realize you accidentally wrote like, metaphors and shit? Wack. Fucked up if true.
> 
> Rereading this chapter, I keep noticing how the internal dialogue goes in circles and repeats itself and gets stuck on certain things, but I don't want to fix it, because I think that's just how Gordon thinks about shit. Man's got a busy noggin.
> 
> Multiplayer AU continues to be thecryptidcorvid's over on tumblr. Check em out; it's their OCs first.

92% of Gordon Freeman’s life, from the day he was born, was, literally, filled with stress. 

That wasn’t such a big number when you really thought about it. He’d only been born a few weeks ago, after all. He didn’t have memories-- he had a backstory. One that felt real to him, made him want to cry when he thought too hard about it, but it wasn’t real. Nothing in his life was. Not even the friends he’d made.

It wasn’t much fun to realize that the people causing his grief were very, very much doing it on purpose. Sure, they might occasionally show sympathy towards him. Occasionally, they might even throw him a bone and treat him as if he were alive... but he wasn't. They didn’t think he was real and they were right. He was a doll, brought to life. He was made to entertain people. What he’d been built to do, his purpose… 

To sum it up, his “purpose” was functionally identical to Buzz Lightyear’s. 

(Gordon... wasn't quite sure how he knew who that was.)

However, as much as his life was hell, it was way, way worse when he forgot.

Forgot it wasn’t real. Forgot the other members of the science team weren’t the same as him. Those periods where Gordon was absolutely, positively certain it was all actually happening. This happened more often than he’d like. It turned out that even when he couldn’t remember the game, being Gordon Freeman? Was still not very fun! But there was nothing he could do about it. As much as he loathed it, he had to follow the rules. The script pulled at his soul. Or whatever he had that passed for one.

Gordon wasn’t a huge fan of authority. He didn’t like troops, he didn’t like cops. He HATED Benry and his stupid passport hounding. Most of all, he LOATHED the script telling him what to do. But he couldn’t talk about it. Couldn’t, y’know, casually bring it up. It seemed increasingly relevant to him! But no.

There were just… there were so many rules to follow. Gordon was so, so sick of it. The players could never understand.

At least, that was what he had thought, before he’d woken Benry up.

Gordon thought he was starting to get used to the void.

Sure, the part where he was unraveled into nothingness hurt like hell every time, but as much as he hated to say it... it wasn’t so bad. Not in the grand scheme of things. It only lasted for half a second. He didn’t LIKE becoming nothing, but it usually came as something of a relief after babysitting the science team. He could at least kind of rest, even if it didn’t exactly restore any kind of stamina. Gordon Freeman didn't get tired in any traditional way.

There was a certain fuzzy numbness that came from not having a body. From not having a brain to carry thoughts. Gordon thought it was pretty impressive that he was managing to think at all, trapped like this. He was starting to kind of get the hang of it! Maybe if he got good enough, he could figure out how to escape into other software. 

Still, every thought was a struggle. Worse than climbing up ladders. Gordon was grateful when the dream started. 

This was the seventh time Gordon had been pulled into the strange, distorted space. Which meant it’d been two days since Benry had last turned the game on, if Gordon’s math was correct. Which it was. Being code had some perks. It was impossible to tell time when he was unspooled in the void, so Gordon was grateful for the information. Anything that could help him orient himself, when everything in his life was, so often, profoundly fucking disorienting.

He was where he'd been when the players last ended the simulation. As far as Gordon could tell, the area around him was a pretty decent recreation of where they had left off. It was accurate down to the positions of the various empty soda cans on the ground. This was huge improvement on a few days ago, where the dream had been muddled and murky and things shifted around like an oil slick on the surface of a pond. Was that just how real humans perceived the world? Gordon hoped not. Whatever had changed, he was grateful for it. 

Gordon had more power here in the dream. Less rules to follow. He was still beholden to his programming, of course; after all, it wasn’t just a part of him. It was ALL of him. Ones and zeroes, all the way down. But here, the script that usually commanded his life broke down in some very important ways, and for that, Gordon was eternally grateful. Otherwise, he would have been constantly derailed by resets. Constantly harassed by the nagging insistence that he was acting and thinking Wrong. The script wasn't exactly made to help him figure this shit out. Plus, it was just nice to have a space where he could sit for a few hours and think. Collect his thoughts without being constantly being interrupted by horrible aliens and being shot and green sludge and Benries.

It was still pitch black, but it was dark in a way that implied there were things there. They were just… there. Gordon could sense them, even if he wasn’t exactly using his eyes for it. When he first woke Benry up, Gordon had no clue what was going on. All he knew was that he was alone with this jerk, it was dark, and he wanted to know where everyone else had gone. 

Now, though, now he thought he had it figured out. His AI had a sort of proximity awareness of other objects. The entities and surfaces were unrendered while Benry was still in his weird, twitchy sleep, but Gordon’s programming latched on and knew how to react. 

His programming told him that there was a floor beneath him, a plane he could sit on, and that meant he had gravity. It told him that he existed in general, which already made it way easier to think than in the void. 

His programming told him that Benry’s prone body was on the floor.

It told him that it wasn’t empty. 

Benry, or whoever was controlling him, was starting to…

…Somehow…

...And Gordon couldn’t believe it either…

But Benry seemed to be straight-up astral projecting into Black Mesa in his sleep. 

Gordon guessed it made a kind of sense, if whoever played Benry was anything close to as weird as he was in the game. Whoever it was, they had to be a total asshole. Or maybe GORDON had done it, somehow, by existing. Gordon knew for a fact he was not meant to be this complex, this alive. Maybe whatever was going on with him had done it to Benry, somehow?? Or, no, a few of the other NPCs also seemed more alive than they should be. So, maybe it was something to do with the game itself? Maybe this was just something the game did to the people who played it. Gordon didn’t know. He was just spitballing. He only had memories from this installation, this playthrough.

It wasn’t just that, either; whatever was going on with Benry and his unseen player, they had code now. The real stuff, too. The kind that told you who you were. What you were going to do. Not just whatever players usually had that let them move and interact with things. Gordon had no idea where this code had come from. It DEFINITELY did not feel like anything else in the game. It had variables and classes that Gordon couldn’t even begin to decipher. 

Sure, the only thing this code seemed to do was make Benry act like his usual asshole self, but it was there. 

Which meant it could be modified. Gordon Freeman, for the first time in his life, had leverage.

...It wasn’t much, but like hell was Gordon going to let go of it now that he had it. Letting go of things in general was not his strong suit. Gordon stared thoughtfully at the prone figure on the floor. How could he use this? How could he make it work for him? Could he take over Benry’s real body, somehow? Use them to escape into the real world? 

Benry’s face was twisted into a grimace that Gordon knew for a fucking fact he would never, EVER show when he was awake. His breathing was quick, and harried. Every so often, his nostrils would flare and he would jitter, slightly. Once or twice in the last couple of days, Gordon had even seen him hyperventilate red, distressed bubbles of Sweet Voice.

He looked more vulnerable than Gordon had ever imagined Benry could possibly be. Never in his wildest, most optimistic dreams.

He looked…

...Scared. 

With great annoyance, Gordon tore his eyes away from his mortal enemy. Why was he feeling SORRY for him? 

Gordon decided then and there that he actually hated the way that the science team and Benry occasionally showed their humanity to him, treated him like a friend. Gordon hated the way Coomer would punch him in the shoulder, joke around with him. How Tommy always seemed so worried about him. Gordon couldn’t stand it. These little moments made it way, WAY harder to hate them. Was this thought reasonable? No! Not at all!! Gordon was aware of that! But when had being reasonable ever got him anywhere? Where in Gordon’s life could you point and say, hey, being reasonable actually got you out of a jam there? Never. So he would keep being unreasonable as long as he damn well pleased. He’d wasted enough time trying to be reasonable.

Gordon Freeman had never, ever won anything in his short, sad existence. Was it any wonder that he was clinging desperately to the first real victory he’d ever had? 

Besides, what the hell did he care that Benry was wigging out in his sleep? Served him right. Gordon had seen how relieved he was, how glad he’d been when the script nearly reset him. When it’d grabbed at Gordon’s strings and attempted to yank him back where he was “supposed” to be, in the middle of an argument he’d actually been kind of winning. 

The fact that Gordon had actually managed to push through the reset, even a little… it could only be explained by how angry he’d been. He’d felt as if white hot fire had curled around every bone in his body, every edge of his model, when he’d heard that little sigh. He felt as if he’d been struck by lightning. It had hurt, badly, to go against his code. It had been impossible to speak any further about the void. 

But the memory of Benry’s horrified gasp when Gordon had managed to push through, had managed to beat the compulsion to forget… it gave him a sort of dark, spiteful, satisfaction that still lingered in his stomach.

He was going to cling to that feeling. 

He was going to use it as motivation for as long as he needed. 

He knew it was messed up. He knew it was wrong to be so happy about this. It felt evil. It felt like kicking someone when they were down. But under these circumstances, what else was he meant to do? He refused to let himself feel guilty about it. No one ELSE felt ever felt guilty about the messed up shit THEY were doing to HIM. 

Gordon was fucking glad. He was glad that Benry wasn’t as above this as he thought he was. Glad that something had brought a real, honest to goodness human down to Gordon's level. He wasn’t invulnerable, wasn't safe in the real world. Gordon had an in.

…

Was Benry… growing?

Gordon stumbled up from his sitting position and pulled out his gun. Something was happening. 

Benry was clawing at his face, muttering under his breath, but it was impossible to make out what he was saying over the blown-out distortion of his voice. Benry could change shape, Gordon knew that, but that was nothing like what he was seeing here. It was like something was pulling him. Stretching him in unsettling ways. Was… was that painful? Gordon had no idea. It looked painful. 

Gordon watched in stunned silence, unsure of what to do next. Shooting him seemed like a bad idea. Should he wake him up?? Would that just make him attack him? They hadn’t exactly left off on the best foot! 

“Uh… hey? You... You good?” He called out, back flat against the wall and as far away from Benry as he could physically get without actually leaving the room. He didn’t think there WAS anything outside of the room. It didn’t seem like anything else was spawned. What if he fell into the skybox?? This wasn’t like the void of the computer. What would happen to him?

Benry didn’t seem to notice him. Gordon couldn’t tell if he genuinely hadn’t heard him, or if he was just playing deaf. It seemed like he was still asleep, but fuck, Gordon wouldn’t put anything past him! Sweet voice was spilling out of Benry’s clenched teeth in frequencies that would make any dog go apeshit. Which--Were Benry’s teeth always that sharp? 

Benry snapped back into shape abruptly, as if he’d never been any other way. There wasn’t any sort of transition; he was nearly the size of an SUV one moment, and then he was normal. Just a normal everyday security guard. Gordon let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Took off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. Paced around the room for a few moments, making a noise not unlike a tea kettle.

What the HELL was THAT?? 

Okay. Revenge could no longer wait. Something really, really fucked up was going on, and Gordon wanted to cut it off sooner, while Benry was still off-balance and changing, rather than later, when he had fully turned into… whatever the FUCK he was turning into. Gordon needed a plan. He just… he just needed to find out what the plan was. Then execute the plan. And then it’d be fine. They’d be set. Just as soon as he figured out what to do. 

Yeah.

Gordon Freeman groaned softly, sank against the floor, and tried to relax.


	4. Prank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaden reenters virtual reality and has a pleasant time, mostly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of a weird one. Took fucking forever to plan and execute, and yet, it's short. I see a pattern growing of dream->game and I think it works out, but the game chapters are so much harder. More moving parts.
> 
> I went to change the age rating for this fic, went to change it to mature, then decided that basically nothing about this shit is mature.
> 
> I'm pretty happy with the actual events of this one, but I can already tell I'll be picking at it and adding to it and rearranging stuff for a while. My prose is so rusty. This is what happens when you read nothing but social media and forsake books for 5 years, I suppose. 
> 
> Don't worry, Jaden will talk about their feelings soon! Nothing to be worried about :)
> 
> As always, feel free to leave comments. I read and love every one of them. Plus, it's just nice to know how the audience is feeling, because I get pretty lost in the sauce when I write. I tend to write in a fever-dream haze, where characters tell me what they'd do next. Which is sucks, because I also don't want gordon to be this mean, but who am I to tell him no?
> 
> The bethesda conversation is a real conversation I had with my coworker when I was working in IT. Dude had some pretty nuts stories about todd howard.
> 
> Multiplayer AU is, as always, thecryptidcorvid's over on tumblr. PLEASE check them out their stuff is really cool :point_right::point_left: :pleading_face:

Jaden was playing OSU again. Rhythm games had become really appealing, lately. You didn’t have to think too hard. Plus, Jaden was like... killing it? They were always pretty decent at guitar hero, but now that they were sitting down and practicing, their rhythm was getting steadily better. Just tap the circles in order. Easy. 

It was only ten minutes before the next scheduled Half Life play session, and Jaden was surprisingly fine with it? Calm, anyway. Calm in a way that made it feel like the play session was actually lightyears away. Incredibly distant, along with Jaden’s desk, their room, and their body in general. 

…

Okay, so, uh. Jaden was absolutely, completely scared shitless. There was no lying about it. Not anymore. Not to themselves, at least. 

After their, uh… encounter… with Gordon the other day, they’d actually clipped straight through the wall rather than follow Gordon out of the room. Finding their friends was first priority, and Jaden had about broke down when they saw them. They were FINE. The team had just been messing around with some puzzle that Jaden remembered giving them grief when they first played Half Life, like, a decade ago. The sheer mundanity of it felt simultaneously like a huge relief and some kind of sick joke. Gordon hadn’t done anything to their friends. They were just messing around. Obviously.

Gordon had seemed to have forgotten about the conversation anyway, right after it’d happened. He didn’t bring it up again, and had seemed a lot more chipper for the rest of the session. Made sense. The reset had probably just… lagged. Taken a moment to proc. Go off. 

...King. Etcetera. 

Luckily, Jaden was a pretty quiet person. It hadn’t set off any alarm bells when they’d been out of it for the rest of the game, because they were usually out of it anyway. Hooray for being spacey. They’d managed to get through without too many problems. They’d even made Xavier laugh once or twice, which was definitely a win; the man was so stressed and bitter that every chuckle was a small success that Jaden couldn’t help but be pleased with. 

But Tommy had seemed worried about them. Tommy definitely knew something was up. Jaden hated it, hated the sinking feeling that they were being so, so obvious. As soon as the headset had come off, it had been shoved under Jaden’s bed where they wouldn’t have to look or think about it for the next week.

Jaden had gotten on with their life.

Things were normal at work. Hell, better than normal. They’d gone out with coworkers for drinks, and it turned out, they had some pretty wild stories; one of them had worked at Bethesda, and had some juicy gossip regarding Todd Howard and the internal slack channels. Apparently, the pay was horrible, but the break room had legos and free drinks, and there was a full massage center. Jaden thought they’d prefer the pay. Also, it sounded like the QA testers and Devs spent a lot less time bug hunting than they did coming up with fun easter eggs. Fallout 76 had apparently been hell. 

Jaden blinked. The song was over. They hadn’t even noticed. 

Silence filled the room. 

Okay yeah shit was weird and fucked up and Jaden didn’t know what to do, okay? Okay? They didn’t see anything they COULD do, so they would just do their best to forget. If they pretended long enough, it’d go away. Everything did, eventually. Jaden did not have insurance. They’d aged out of their parents stuff and their job was too shitty to cover anything, so. 

This lack of insurance was especially garbage, cause Jaden was pretty certain they were dying? 

At least, that was what WebMD seemed to think. Haha.

Hah. 

The migraines were getting worse. Sometimes it felt like something was drawing circles on the inside of their skull. Sometimes it just felt like their brain was pulsating. 

Jaden put the headset on before they could think about this any further. The weight on their scalp was reassuring. Jaden started the lobby.

Black Mesa loaded in. It took Jaden a second to realize that their eyes were darting around, examining everything, making sure nothing had moved while the game was off. They shook off the sudden rush of fear, which was easy, because nothing had moved. Nothing to be scared of. 

“You’re late.” That was Xavier—Bubby. Jaden winced, but refused to let the action show in their body language. Honestly, the whole head tracking thing made everything way more of a pain. Coomer spun around. It was amazing how accusatory the action felt even without facial cues. Mariko was a very physical sort of person. 

“Oh, don’t give them a hard time, you animal.” Jaden’s chest tightened. Oh, god, they didn’t want to be defended here, not when Xavier was totally right. 

“I just don’t like it when people don’t respect other people’s time, is all.” Bubby crossed his arms, tapping his palm against his forearm with what Jaden could only imagine as impatience. Coomer moved as if he wanted to say something else, then paused, looked at Jaden, looked back at Bubby, and changed tact. 

“I’ll believe that when YOU stop telling me to watch, ‘One Piece!’” Something about the line delivered in Coomer’s stupid scientist voice made Jaden snicker. It felt like the first time in weeks. 

“It’s a modern classic!” Bubby huffed back indignantly.

“Hey, uh, guys… where’s Mr. Freeman?” 

Jaden jolted. Wait, Tommy was right. How the fuck had Jaden forgotten?? Where’d Gordon gone?? Where was he? What was--

“Hello, Benry!”

Oh thank god. Jaden had never been so glad to hear that stupid canned voice clip. There he was. Behind some boxes.

(...Was that where he’d been when they’d last logged in? Yeah. Definitely.) 

“Sup.” Jaden… didn’t really feel like joking around right now. Well, they did, but they couldn’t come up with anything to say. Ugh, that was happening more and more. 

“Another day of this. That’s what’s up.” Gordon replied. Jaden was listening harder than they’d ever listened before to anyone. Listening for any clue Gordon was going to snap. 

Gordon blinked a few times. Why did he look so surprised?

“...Just another day in Black Mesa. Where do they even get all these skulls? Clones? Why just the heads?” A deep weariness crept into Gordon’s voice, and Jaden relaxed. Okay, they were set. From what Jaden could tell, Gordon had a few different levels of awareness. He seemed to be in the usual “Freaked out, tired, and angry” mode. Already a massive improvement on the “Doki Doki Literature Club” state he’d been rocking last week. Looked like things were mostly back to normal. Jesus Christ. God. Fuck. 

“Iunno. Some people just really enjoy head.” Gordon actually chuckled at that one. Holy shit. Maybe this day wasn’t going to be so bad.

“Speaking from experience, there?”

“Wh--??” 

“Come on! We’re just 5 hours away from the Lambda lab.” 

Gordon turned away abruptly. Probably forgot what he’d just said, some other thought or action taking priority in some internal flowchart. The little smile didn’t vanish, though. It was hard to think about anything else. 

Bubby was making retching noises. Oh. Oh, god, was it that obvious? That exchange hadn’t meant anything. Jaden pulled themselves together the best they could. Just another dumb joke. Just a joke. They just had to keep going forward. Don’t worry about it. 

The rest of the session was going well. Gordon was fine. He whined about how much blood was being spilled. He rambled on and on about various bits and pieces of lore that Jaden was absolutely sure were noncanonical, that they always kinda ended up tuning out after a few minutes. Normal. As normal as Gordon got, anyway. The rest of the team were trucking along, and Jaden was following from a middle distance, occasionally messing around.

Not as much as last week, where they’d apparently acted like such a dick, Gordon had decided to go full Monika on them.

The resets seemed to be worse today, though. Gordon kept forgetting things, kept failing jumping puzzles over and over, kept saying things that were straight up, demonstrably untrue. He would crack back when Jaden made dumb jokes and then forget and act like he hadn’t said anything and Jaden would get flustered and they were certain EVERYONE could see it. 

Okay, no, it wasn’t just that Gordon was responding to Jaden's jokes. Gordon was FLIRTING. He’d make a positively flirtatious comment, then seemingly forget what he’d been saying, act like he hadn’t said anything. Every fucking time, Coomer and Bubby totally lost it. They LOVED this new development. 

Honestly?? Fucking honestly? Jaden was absolutely losing their shit as well! Every time it happened! From sheer, stomach-churning embarrassment! The sort that went up and down your spine! 

Still, though, despite this, uh, wrinkle... it was nice. Things were moving smoothly, even if Gordon was messing up puzzles and acting glitchy. 

A few hours in, Coomer and Bubby decided to take a break to get dinner. Jaden was just about to take the headset off themselves, when they heard something coming from a side corridor.

“You really aren’t being very nice.”

Was that… Tommy? Jaden opened their mouth to speak, but the next words stopped them cold.

“What do you mean?” 

That was Gordon. That was Gordon. Jaden didn’t move. They didn’t even breathe. Tommy and Gordon thought they were far enough that Jaden couldn’t hear them, and like hell was Jaden going to dispel that illusion right now. They strained to hear, eyes closed. Jaden could hear their own heartbeat. If Jaden listened any harder, their ears would start bleeding.

Jaden almost ruined it when Tommy spoke next. Almost yelped in surprise. Jaden had never heard Tommy that ANGRY.

“You—You know! You know what I mean! Don’t act like you don’t! You keep pretending to forget!”

There was a pause that stretched for far too long.

“So, what. I can’t have any fun? Is having fun just for humans?”

Jaden wished they’d never been born. 

This feeling only got worse when Tommy kept talking.

“It’s mean.”

“No, it’s not. You know what’s mean? Treating your friend like a robot. Acting like he actually cares about me, knowing he’s gonna rip me to atoms in an hour. This, this is just KARMA. And—How could you tell, anyway! I was following the stupid rules!” That last line was completely indignant. Jaden could practically see Gordon jab an accusatory finger. 

“I, I know what causes the resets. You’re just doing it to be MEAN! Whatever you’re doing to my friend, you need to QUIT IT!”

“Hey, I’m not doing anything, this is all on him." Gordon attempted to brush past Tommy, get back to the rest of the team. Tommy moved in front of him. 

“Then why have they been so WEIRD! I heard what you said to them! Last week!”

Jaden’s heart froze to ice. Gordon looked totally stunned, which shifted into nervous, and then, guilty. He wrung his hands slightly, then one hand went to scratch the back of his head, the other on his hip. Bit of a Phoenix Wright maneuver, Jaden thought idly. 

“Well, uh. I mean... did you hear ALL of it, or just...”

“I heard what I needed to! What is HAPPENING to them! They, they keep saying weird stuff… what you said about seeing them in their sleep... they won’t tell me anything, my DAD won’t tell me anything, so YOU have to.” 

“Hoookay. You heard THAT part. The dream part. Great. Cool. Was kind of hoping, um."

A pause. They just looked at eachother for a moment as Gordon visibly realized he couldn't say what he was about to say next. Couldn't say he wished Tommy hadn't overheard. Tommy's expression was thunderous.

"...You know what? Nevermind. Sorry you had to see that, Tommy. Wait, what does your dad have to do with any of this?”

“TELL ME.” Tommy's patience had entirely tapped out.

Gordon was quiet for a moment. Gordon scratched his beard. Tommy had his arms folded, foot tapping. It’d almost be comical if Jaden had been in a better frame of mind. Eventually, Gordon replied.

“Whatever it is, it's bigger than I am. That’s for damn sure.” 

“Get up!”

That wasn’t Gordon or Tommy, that was Bubby, right next to Jaden’s head. Jaden’s eyes snapped wide open. Bubby gave a little snort of exasperation when Jaden shot ramrod straight. Their eyes had been closed? They’d been CLOSED. But then—How—Wait—Wait, hold on. They'd SEEN. 

“What’s the matter with you?” 

“Uhh. Nothing.” Jaden replied. Bubby glanced away.

“Right, yeah. Obviously. Not sure why I asked.” 

Jaden muted their mic before it could pick up their shuddering cry of a response.


	5. Lull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes are compared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh christ take this AWAY from me. This chapter was a NIGHTMARE to plan and execute. It's so big and slow and there's so much going on. Worse, it has like, character progression. Can't I just write fever dreams? Must I explain things? Can't I just write shit being fucked up, like haha, would that be fucked up or what?
> 
> I'm never writing exposition again, sorry guys, you're on your own picking this shit apart. Next chapter is gonna have to be weird and surreal to make up for all this slice of life.
> 
> That being said, I think I pulled it off okay.
> 
> https://godros.tumblr.com/post/621436384553680896 Godros over on tumblr drew some stuff for chapters 1-4 and honestly I spent like, two days losing my mind over it. Still kinda losing my mind tbh. I love seeing how people interpret my stuff in ways I never even dreamed of. I didn't think Gordon would look so smug at the end of chapter 2, but he would! Goddamn! How they know that! I didn't even know that!
> 
> If anyone's drawn any fanart and I haven't linked it here, it's just because I haven't seen it. Also: p-pweese show me my tumblr's angelcroc
> 
> As always, thank each and every person who left a comment on last chapter, the chapters before, and anyone who leaves a comment on this one. Seriously. U da MVP
> 
> Multiplayer au belongs to thecryptidcorvid on tumblr, as always! go check them out!

Jaden stared down at the sheet of printer paper with an intensity that, in a more just world, would destroy it. Instead, it remained stubbornly on the desk. Oh well. It wasn’t like destroying the paper would destroy the things on it. 

_Jaden’s big list of fucked up shit_

The list of symptoms was a lot, lot longer than Jaden would like, and they didn’t really want to think about any them any farther right now, but having them put down into words was reassuring. It was like… like...

Debugging games at work. That was what it felt like.

Jaden took a deep breath, tried to swallow the feeling that rose in their throat, and reviewed the list. 

_-crazy good rhythm_

Jaden was pretty good at music. They had a great voice, at least for karaoke, and their rhythm was always decent. That wasn’t this. This was new.

Rhythm games had ceased to be fun pretty quickly after that last play session. The pulsating, thrumming feeling in their brain had gotten worse. It was impossible to ignore, even; sometimes it would overlay the rest of their life like a drum beat. If Jaden wasn’t careful, they’d find themselves unconsciously moving to it. Pressing buttons to it. Doing dishes to it. Walking to it, in even, identical steps. Very cool! Very fun. This one was the worst! It was a big part of why Jaden was making this list! Almost as bad as…

Well, no. The stuff with Gordon was way worse. They were being honest or whatever, now, so clarifying that detail to themselves felt important, even if they hated it. 

After a moment’s consideration, Jaden added a footnote to this symptom.

_-good reflexes_

Because it wasn’t just rhythm games, it was most games. Not, like, city builders, or anything that required forethought, but Jaden was notably better at shooters, for sure. Anything that required following prompts quickly and accurately. This made it really, really hard to play ANY videogames, actually. 

_-ear buzz_

Not regular tinnitus. This didn’t really sound like the high note Jaden associated with a grenade going off in a movie. It was more like… buzzing. Like flies. 

_-fever??_

Jaden didn’t have a thermometer, so they couldn’t really check. By the time they got it, the fever would probably have gone, anyway. It never lasted very long. It was just a strange, heady rush they got lately when they tried to focus on too many things at once. It felt like their forehead was going to explode and their limbs went cold. And then it was gone, like it’d never even happened. It DID kind of help them focus, they guessed?? They never even noticed it until it was already over...

_-waking up feeling like I just licked batteries for 4 hours_

Self explanatory, Jaden thought. No idea what that was about. Actually, while they were at it…

_-waking up feeling like I just chugged a bottle of cinnamon_

Also self explanatory. It was pretty gross.

_-No more dreams when I sleeps_

Jaden wasn’t sure if this counted, but it’d been a couple of weeks, and usually, Jaden had some pretty vibrant dreams. They missed them. They were definitely better than the weird being-smothered feeling Jaden kept waking up with instead.

_-seeing through/into things_

This was a newer development. Jaden had been clumsier, lately, which was REALLY saying something, because they were already so clumsy that they spent like a fifth of their time in elementary school in the nurses office. They kept bumping into things that weren’t there… right up until they bumped into them, at which point, they abruptly became There. It made driving a huge pain in the ass. 

They really wanted to leave the thought at that. But that wasn’t the full extent of it. That didn’t capture what made it so bad. Invisible objects were… they were ANNOYING, it wasn’t FINE, but it was better than what had happened the other day.

The other day, Jaden had gone to take a shower, and noticed that part of the wall wasn’t there. 

Jaden could see through it, but there wasn’t drywall or anything underneath. There wasn’t any kind of support. Just a flat facade of a wall, like stretching a piece of fabric over a big pit.

There was a strange void that looked… looked…

Okay, no, it was a skybox. It was obviously a fucking skybox. It was a fucking skybox and they hated it and they weren’t going to think about this any farther. It looked like a fucking chunk rendering glitch in Minecraft, okay? They could see into the other apartments through it like some kind of weird peeping tom. Which was SO fucking stupid. This was all SO stupid. It was SO dumb. Holy shit, couldn’t their terrors manifest in, like, less stupid ways? Ways that didn’t make them feel like they were trapped in a terrible story written by a 10 year old on Wattpad?

When did they become such a little baby about everything? 

...Well, when Gordon had woken them up, obviously. 

(But they’d always been scared. Always shied away from anything that hurt. Always made up a reason why the things they hated weren’t actually happening, always tried to figure out why it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Lied until they didn’t even know they were lying.) 

They hadn’t gone to work in a couple of days. They had somehow managed to convince their coworkers to cover for them. They weren’t lingering on the implications of how easy it’d been, how that probably meant that even strangers could tell how sick they were. 

They couldn’t go to work because they absolutely couldn’t stand to play videogames right now. Even without VR. This was pretty annoying! That was what they did when they were freaked out! It was like their biggest stress relief had been stolen out from under them when they needed it the most.

Jaden resented a lot about this situation, actually. They weren’t an angry person! They really, really weren’t. But being kept off balance like this, always jumping at shadows… it was really, really getting to them, and they could no longer pretend people weren’t noticing. Obviously everyone could see it. There was no point in playing dumb.

Which was why they’d had Tommy’s discord page open for about three hours, trying to work up the nerve to tell him about it. 

They’d written and discarded about 30 different messages on more printer paper. Because the idea of Tommy seeing them type for that long made them feel like their head was going to explode. They had to get it right. They had to make it make sense, and not sound stupid, and not sound like they were over exaggerating. All of these apologies and explanations had ended up at the bottom of the trash bin. None of them made sense, or captured the full depths of Jaden’s dread. None of them felt right. Nothing but the single sentence that was currently sitting in the chat box, waiting to be sent. 

[hey uhhhh sorry ive been so weird can we talk about it]

It was too simple. It made them feel dumb, which probably meant it made them look dumb, too. 

But Tommy wouldn’t hate them. Tommy wouldn’t hate them for being confused and unable to explain themselves. Tommy got it, more than any of their other friends. 

They had to cling to that idea, or they’d never be able to do anything. 

They sent the message and almost had a heart attack when the response came back within 5 seconds. 

[Of course!! :D What do you want to talk about?]

Instantly. Instantly with the difficult questions. Jaden groaned and ran their hands through their hair for a few seconds. Gnawed on the pen they’d been using, which was crunched to shit by this point. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a difficult question, maybe it was exactly the question they should have been anticipating, should have come up with an answer for beforehand. 

Oh, god, another message. 

[It’s okay if you can’t say it… but you have to try. You can do it!!]

Jaden didn’t overthink it further. They already had what they needed to say. 

They just sent the list of symptoms they’d been working on. It made them feel a little sick, honestly. Before, where writing it out had been reassuring, a way to put words to something that was terrifying and incomprehensible... typing it out again just felt like a reminder that this was all really happening. Plus, giving the list to another person meant that Jaden had to try and explain why some of this was so bad. Why their newfound rhythm was so unbearable, enough to make them not even want to play ANY games. Eventually, Jaden just settled on writing “acting like a robot.” 

This list wasn’t totally complete, either. Old habits died hard. Jaden was trying to be open about their feelings and all, but some things were just straight up too weird to bring up to Tommy. Like that first nightmare. Others were just too embarrassing. Like the way they kept catching glimpses of Gordon in the corner of their eye. In mirrors, in the background of TV shows, a flash of orange against a sea of normal people. Then, after a blink, he was gone. God, were they obsessed or what? 

...

Jaden knew they were scared when they accepted the idea that they maybe had a bit of a crush on their tormentor.

Unfortunately, Jaden had already promised themselves that they’d stop ignoring this stuff. Otherwise they were gonna get killed by crazed AI. Even if they weren’t going to tell Tommy about this part. The idea that Gordon was not, actually, following them around… there was no way they were that lucky. He was definitely watching them, somehow. 

It took Tommy an agonizingly long time to reply; by the time he did, Jaden had already tabbed out. By the time Tommy replied, Jaden had had time to linger. To consider what he might say next. That little orange number on the icon made them feel a deep dread… But not as bad as the dread Gordon made them feel, so! Kinda put things into perspective!!

[That sounds really hard?]

Relief flooded Jaden. They weren’t sure what they’d been expecting. Of course that was what Tommy would say. He believed them. Of course he believed them, he’d seen what Gordon was doing. Why had they thought he’d tear into them? Jaden went to respond.

[yeahhh uh just a lil] 

[and god that doesn’t even touch on the gordon thing sorry you heard that conversation btw]

[I mean i know it sounds ridiculous like ohhh i’m getting cyberbullied by Gordon Freeman, Protagonist of Half Life] 

[lil baby can’t handle a little meta shit]

More silence. The pauses were still frightening, a space where Jaden had no idea how Tommy was going to react, if he was going to be cool about things or call them insane. This fear was lessening with each exchange. 

[It doesn’t sound ridiculous, Gordon’s been really fucked up :\ ]

Jaden laughed, just out of sheer relief.

They weren’t nuts. They weren’t nuts. Well, they were nuts, yeah, but they were nuts in a way that other people understood. In fact, Tommy kept going.

[I don’t know what his problem is!! He’s being a really bad friend :(]

Urgh… well, okay, maybe Jaden could try to answer that? While they were, y’know. Sharing information and not keeping it all bottled up and all. But it wasn’t like Jaden understood Gordon either. Hell, they probably understood him way less than Tommy did. No reason to spitball about things their friend already knew...

…

Jaden was going to do it anyway. 

[idk i think hes just mad about being stuck in the game??]

Tommy’s response came quickly, this time.

[But… that’s where he lives? Where else would he go?]

Jaden blinked a little in astonishment at Tommy’s reply. Well, uh. That was one way to look at it, they supposed. 

[idk i don’t think hes thinking about it like that i think hes just]

[mad]

Jaden paused for a second, then bolded the word. 

Then underlined it. The response from Tommy came quickly. 

[Hang on, can I come over??]

Oh. Huh. That… hm.

Jaden glanced around the room. Disgusting old mugs, dirty laundry, and basically all number of shit strewn on their floor greeted their view. The main room wasn’t much better; they’d destroyed the faucet on the sink months ago, and ended up fixing it with duct tape and an empty coke bottle. The dish obelisk was ever growing these days. The entire place smelled faintly of old smoke and socks. 

Not to mention, Jaden wasn’t even sure they could talk about this verbally in the first place? Saying words was a lot harder than writing them. Oh shit there was Tommy again

[Or we can go get lunch or something... I’ll pay!! I dunno if I can talk about this over text]

Jaden let out an annoyed hiss through their teeth. Well, that settled it then, didn’t it? Tommy had something to say. They had to listen. Plus, well, you didn’t turn down a free meal.

Jaden typed out some affirmative response and went to shower. It’d be about 40 minutes before Tommy got there, so there was absolutely no way their hair would be dry by the time he arrived, but it was better than the grime that had built up over the last couple of days. 

Tommy arrived in his old baby blue volkswagon bus. It was ancient, a total anachronism from the 70s, and Tommy always talked about how it was breaking down... but always in an oddly fond way. Like he was happy to fix whatever was wrong with it. Hell, he called it Debbie. Jaden didn’t really get it, but Tommy got pretty pissy when people threw away technology that still worked, so they weren’t about to be a dick about it. 

Was Sunkist in the back seat? She was. The dog was almost 17 at this point, but still looked adorable. Like a dog you’d see on a bag of dog food. 

Tommy beamed at Jaden.

“Hi! It’s been a while, huh? Where’s lunch?”

Jaden hadn’t thought that far, but honestly, if they were being really honest with their cravings…

“...Just Taco Bell?” They didn’t want to make Tommy pay for anything more expensive, anyway. Tommy nodded at the response, adjusted the mirror--

Jaden spun wildly to look at the back seat.

No one was there. Just the dog. Just the dog. Just Sunkist. Jaden let out a shuddering breath through their clenched teeth. Their smile had turned into a terrified grimace. Tommy, mercifully, didn’t say anything about this. 

Tommy was a perfect driver who always followed the rules of the road to the letter. This, bizarrely, made him kind of a bad driver, since no one else seemed to have gotten the message. On the way to Taco Bell, Jaden found that it was easier to speak than they thought it’d be. They chattered about anything and everything that came to mind. Sure, none of it actually had to do with what they’d been talking about before they left, but, y’know. Details. 

They didn’t go into the Taco Bell, obviously. They could just eat in the car. Besides, even if this wasn’t the location Jaden had worked at… there were just bad vibes. Bad vibes about that cashier counter. Rotten vibes. They wouldn’t let it keep them away from a crunchwrap though. 

“I don’t know why Nacho Fries aren’t just a staple of the menu. God I hate fast food places bro. They always make the best food limited time for cheap hype about it being back, like, oooh, the McRib is back! Like... It didn’t go anywhere? Like, where’d it go? Space? Connecticut? The Return of the McRib. It’s all arbitrary.” 

“Um… I like listening to you talk about the McRib, but…”

“I mean. Seriously, they’d rather everything be slightly shittier all the time for making a little more—Whuh?” Tommy’s words processed quickly, though. Instead of letting Tommy repeat himself, Jaden continued, as quickly as they could, before Tommy could say anything else.

“Wh. Well. Uh. I mean, like, it just, it’s sucks, okay? Like? I mean, I’d go find it. I’d go questing for the McRib if I had to. I don’t even like the McRib; this is just how strongly I feel about seasonal fast food. Like, no matter what kind of people they have protecting it. It’s like, Shrek and Fiona. I’d go through dragons to get one more bite. I’d go through, like, shitty little fancy dudes with poodle hair. What kind of asshole wants to live in Disney Land...?” 

Jaden trailed off. Tommy was giving them this look. They HATED that look; it was patient. But it worked, and Jaden didn’t say anything else. Dammit, the Shrek joke was played out, anyway. Maybe their stupid ploy would have worked if they’d picked a better meme. 

Tommy took a deep breath before he started, as if he was preparing to launch into some speech of his own. 

“Okay, um, my dad, right?”

The gears in Jaden’s brain turned frantically. Shit, HAD Tommy ever told them about his dad? Jaden knew Tommy had mentioned him before, even before that little fight with Gordon. Jaden had thought Tommy was an orphan for some reason, actually? Jaden was forgetting something important again, but it wasn’t like the nightmare. This was just their life! See, hah, it was funny, because the dream was real! Constantly forgetting important things about their friends and themselves. 

Tommy seemed to pick up on this thought process, because he was waving his hands frantically, as if to physically push the cloud of anxiety back into Jaden. 

“It was rhetorical! I, um, dunno if I’ve ever brought up my dad. But he was the one who gave me the game.”

Oh.

Yeah, Tommy had been the one to introduce the game to their friend group, huh.

“My dad’s from the game.”

Oh.

Huh. 

“I guess you guys call him G-man?”

Um?? Wait.

“But, um, I never knew him like that! He was just my dad. I mean, we could never really meet in person...”

Wait—Wait, hold on. Jaden wasn’t sure what they had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. They were getting whiplash.

“I mean, I heard he was kinda mean in the game, but he’s never been mean to me! He was always there for me when no one else was. Not even Sunkist, back then. I’d talk about stuff I liked, and he’d ask questions, and he always listened...” 

“Stop. Pause. You said your dad is G-man.” Tommy blinked, and looked a little sheepish. He hadn’t noticed when Jaden had started to get lost. Jaden, on the other hand, was trying to unpick their feelings about what Tommy had said. They had a lot of them. 

“...That sounds really, really dumb. Your dad’s fake?” 

Tommy frowned, and Jaden’s stomach dropped.

“Um… I know you’re just, doing that thing you do… but please don’t be rude about my dad. He’s NOT fake.”

“Mhh. Yeah. Sorry.” Jaden mumbled. In another world, this would have been said with a poker face. Here, though, Jaden gave a guilty little grimace and glanced out the window, utterly shamefaced. God dammit. Why did they always do that? Say shit like that? They never meant to, it just came out. 

Tommy was still wrong, though. 

Tommy frowned harder. It didn’t look right on his face. He was usually so sunny.

“It’s not just my dad! Those are my friends you’re talking about! So don’t be rude.”

“Gffhhh. Sorry.” Jaden still didn’t believe it, but that was less due to any actual evidence in front of them, and more due to the fact that, if they started thinking of the AI as alive, that’d mean Gordon was alive, and that’d be…

Bad. 

It felt bad, so it had to be bad. It twisted their insides into awful little knots. Nothing that felt that way could be right. However, Tommy seemed to relax and accept this apology. He started playing with the straw of his drink, looking lost in thought. 

“I asked my dad again after, um. You told me what was going on with you. He had a little bit more to say, this time, but he’s always so vague!” Tommy sounded more than a little frustrated with this. Jaden on the other hand, was suddenly flustered. Tommy had TOLD someone?? His dad? G-man? God, of course he’d be vague, yeah, no shit. Jaden couldn’t even begin to process whatever the hell Tommy’s dad being fucking G-MAN meant, but they knew they didn’t like Tommy spilling the details of their Petscop Disease to some stranger. 

Jaden didn’t say anything, though. Tommy had more on his mind, and this next part seemed important.

“He said he thought it had something to do with you being player one, I think? He said the game’s world was tethered to you. He also said you already had most of the files already, cause you’ve played Half Life so many times.” Okay, THAT made Jaden blink a few times, flummoxed, before their expression resolved into frustration.

“So—Wait, what? Like, if Xavier had a less shitty computer and hosted the game, would this all be happening to him?? And c’mon about me having. FILES. That’s not. This is just. Really, really weird Tetris effect. FILES.” 

Tommy frowned again. 

Oh god dammit. Jaden was sensitive to every little negative shift in Tommy’s expression. Every little frown felt like a sign that Tommy was gonna get wise to how stupid this all was and ditch them at Taco Bell and leave them to walk home and probably get a stitch in their side and 

“I’m really, really sorry?” Tommy said quietly, and with such genuine despair it stopped Jaden’s internal monologue in its tracks.

Tommy looked… guilty. Had he been blaming himself for this? How had Jaden not noticed? Tommy was always quiet, always considerate, so it hadn’t been a surprise when he’d offered to come out and buy them lunch. Now, though, Tommy couldn’t even look at them. He was staring at the Baja Blast like it held the secrets of the universe. 

“I never played it before…! My dad wouldn’t let me! I didn’t know it was going to do any of that!” 

“Wh. Hey, don’t look like that. It’s not your fault, you didn’t know.”

“I should have known! I just. Wanted my friends to. I wanted them to understand. They never do. And now everything’s fucked!”

Jaden didn’t like comforting people. They were bad at it, just like they were bad at everything else about communication. They didn’t know if Tommy wanted to be touched right now, even if he looked like he wanted a hug. It was safer not to.

Sunkist came from the back seat, apparently summoned by the sound of Tommy’s distress. She licked his face. He laughed a little. Cool. Dog was a better friend than Jaden. After Tommy had cooled down a little, Jaden sighed.

“I mean—It’s fine, it’s just. Why me?”

“Um. It’s the player one stuff, I think!”

“No, that’s not—Rephrasing. I really wish this wasn’t happening to me.” 

Tommy was just quiet, looking at them with the saddest little frown Jaden had ever seen. He looked positively glum. This expression, and the silence, felt unbearable. Silence like this was Jaden’s worst enemy. Not only did they feel compelled to rush in and fill it, it felt like every time they did, they said something they didn’t want to. 

“I mean, of course it’d be me, right? I’m always the one breaking shit. Maybe the game was normal before I touched it. Before I started trying to break the boundaries of the fucking. Cursed, creepypasta-ass. Maybe the game was normal before I started trying to piss off Gordon. Maybe we’d just have a good fucking time playing Half Life if I wasn’t such a—If I—Oh, God DAMMIT.” 

Nope, not crying. Oh, god, now Sunkist was here for them, too. They buried their head in her fur so they wouldn’t have to look at Tommy.

“Ummm….” Tommy paused.

“You wanna… go back through the drive through and get some Cinnabon Delights?”

Jaden almost laughed. Yeah. Of course that’s how Tommy would react.

“Get some cum balls? I mean. No. No, no, I’m not making you buy me any more stuff.” 

Tommy did it anyway, despite Jaden’s protests. To be fair, yeah, they needed some shitty cheap little cinnamon cream cheese dough balls. It did make them feel slightly better. 

The tension seemed to be dispelled. Jaden was feeling more relaxed than they had in weeks. They had both said what they needed to say, and even if nothing was actually fixed… it felt so, so good not to be alone. It was painful to tell someone about this, but a sort of pain that Jaden was hungry for, desperate. 

“...Thanks, Tommy.” That wasn’t strong enough, but Jaden had no idea how to convey their gratitude further. 

“Just… thanks.”

Tommy smiled at that, but now, there was a new guilt to it. Not the gnawing, all-encompassing kind Tommy had shown before. This new guilt was sad and small.

“You have to talk to Gordon.”

Instant vertigo.

It was like nothing else in the world existed. For a flash, Jaden could almost swear nothing in the world DID exist, except for them, Tommy, and the blue, cloudless sky. The bus had vanished, Sunkist had vanished, gravity had vanished. 

Then, the rest of the world returned, pieces at a time. When the bus closed in on them, Jaden felt a wash of awful claustrophobia.

_GET ME OUT OF THIS BOX!_

Jaden slammed the door open, and stumbled out into the Taco Bell parking lot. They were trembling now, shaking all over, but also just shaking their head. 

“Nope. Nope, not happening, sorry. Have you seen him lately. He’s going to chop me up. There’s gonna be hyperrealistic blood everywhere, are you kidding. NO.” 

Oh, god, Tommy looked like he’d been EXPECTING this. Oh, god, was that what the whole conversation had been leading up to!? Because hard fucking pass!

“You have to! I know he’s being mean, but he seems really, really scared.” Jaden laughed at this, but it was a raspy, stressed sort of noise. They ran their hands through their hair, trying to use the feeling to ground themselves, but it wasn’t working. Not when they were thinking about talking to Gordon.

Jaden paced the parking lot. It was pretty empty. No one but him and Tommy. 

“WHY would he be scared. WHY. He’s—HE’S the one doing all this. He’s got total control of the situation. You seen the way he’s been acting.” Tommy was shaking his head, but Jaden didn’t want to hear it. They were getting more and more frantic. “I mean—Thanks for the food, and all, but no.”

“I, uh, don't think he's the one doing all of this. And of course he’s scared of you! You need to talk!” Jaden was suddenly furious at Tommy. Just talk to him! Simple! Tommy made it sound so easy, when he might as well have asked Jaden to chew their own leg off! 

“Why the hell would he be scared of ME. I’m scared of HIM.” 

“You could uninstall the game. Delete him.”

That stopped Jaden cold.

“No, I couldn’t.” Jaden said, suddenly much more quiet. The vertigo was returning. 

“You could.”

“No—No, I couldn’t. That’s messed up. That’s a messed up thing to say.” 

“So tell him that! He doesn’t KNOW. You haven’t told him ANYTHING. He’s your friend, but he doesn’t KNOW that. He’s trapped, all alone! That’s why he hates you so much!”

Tommy’s expression was like looking at the surface of the sun.

It was so... pure. Not in a cinnamon roll sort of way. In a processed steel kind of way. No doubts or worries in that expression. Nothing but a genuine desire for his two friends to reconcile. Nothing but a deep conviction that these things could be resolved, if only they’d just finally have a conversation. Sometimes, Tommy had a sort of crystal clarity, a perfection, that Jaden was so jealous of it burned. Answers seemed to come easily to him. He never seemed to feel conflicted about them. 

And thus, Benry lied.

“Mmmhh. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I’ll talk to him.”

Tommy beamed. Oh, thank fucking god, he was off their case. Holy shit. Jaden let out a breath.

“Oh, thank goodness! I knew you would!” Tommy looked so relieved and Jaden couldn’t look at that right now. Couldn’t think about it. They were just… going to climb into the passenger seat of the car. It seemed like the parking lot had filled in again. When had all these people gotten there? Oh, god, Jaden hoped none of them had seen any of that. Though they probably wouldn’t understand if they had. 

Jaden looked out the window. They felt like they were somewhere very far away.


	6. Pause (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon explores his new circumstances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! This one was a LOT harder than I thought it'd be. Still not entirely thrilled with it. But I can't keep picking at it. It's okay if it's not perfect. 
> 
> I told myself I'd write less exposition and then promptly decided to have a fucking Gordon POV chapter like a total idiot. Whoops! This chapter feels rougher than the rest, but that's okay, because there's a lot going on. Passionate conversations and weird surreal horror is easy. Groundwork for later events is hard. I'm not used to writing it! At least I've given myself permission to let Gordon's internal monologue ramble, but here's hoping it's comprehensible for people other than me.
> 
> Not gonna lie, a lot of that procrastination was me writing notes about what happens in the FUTURE instead of working on writing what happens right NOW. And by notes I mean RP. Whoops. At least I have a better handle on these characters now, I guess! Especially Gordon's whole deal. What he was made for, who made the game, what exactly it does to its players... that sort of thing. Christ I am out on a limb from canon here, like, yeesh. Ah well! I CAN write canon-adjacent stuff, but, uh, this ain't it, so I shouldn't feel too guilty if characters get screwy. Just gotta trust my shit's interesting.
> 
> But I will finish this so help me god, no matter how long it takes >:( I never finish anything so this will be the first.
> 
> That being said! Will probably edit it as I read over it again and again. I keep accidentally mandela effecting my readers via adding and rearranging shit to be more aesthetically pleasing and flow better.
> 
> https://avemarts.tumblr.com/post/621780988517924864/anurasally-hello-i-love-formatting-errors More fanart that made me weep to receive!! God, like? I hate tumblr's tagging system bro? I didn't even see this until I was digging through the tags? Seriously if you've drawn ANYTHING fire me an ask over at angelcroc on tumblr. 
> 
> Multiplayer au as usual belongs to thecryptidcorvid at tumblr dot com!

Gordon Freeman, for the first time in his life, was procrastinating!

Gordon had a lot of thoughts about what being human would be like. Dreams about things like making up a signature. Or having an awkward exchange with a cashier. Or, hell, even just abandoning the name of Gordon Freeman, freeing himself from the game entirely. He had a whole list of names, a document in his head. 

They were lame dreams! He was very aware of that! But they felt so far removed from his current existence, they somehow kept him going.

Procrastination had never really been an option for him. As a videogame character, his life was pretty goddamned stressful. Hell, with this fucking script, it was probably stressful for the regular Gordon Freeman, too. It was all, move move move, go go go. He had just thought it sounded nice. The idea of having to do something, and deciding, yeah, no, I’ll do it later. Honestly, he’d sort of been looking forward to it. 

In practice, though, procrastination was almost more anxiety-inducing than an unseen headcrab could be.

...Almost. 

Benry’s nightly stints in Black Mesa were getting longer and longer. And Gordon wasn’t complaining! Gave him more time to think. Remind himself of what was important. What was at stake. 

He needed to fucking get out of here before whatever the hell Benry was doing came to fruition. And he wanted revenge. And then, somehow, somewhere, he’d become human. 

It all felt ridiculous, unachievable, but giving up on any of it was not in the cards. He could practically see the quest log. 

Unfortunately, the thing about having more time to think was that it gave him more time to think. Think about how fucking impossible it all was. Think about how he had no fucking clue what he was doing, He didn’t like to remember that, yeah, no, if you just change a bracket here, a curly brace there, he’d be totally nonfunctional. Even though he was fully aware of what he was, he still preferred to pretend that he had some fucking sense of self outside of his code. But he was making modifications to himself! His “soul!” That was gonna have a fucking effect, he was sure. He was going to fuck it up, somehow.

But...

Benry was still in the corner. 

He didn’t look right. The security guard was still the same general shape, but… different. The disguise seemed to be slipping in small ways. Hands that folded, clipped into themselves. Grey, sallow skin, sharp teeth… and he didn’t look scared anymore, either. He looked like Benry. Blank.

The dream Black Mesa had been growing, too; before it had just been a room. Now, now corridors spiraled out from the center like some awful deep-sea starfish. Gordon wasn’t exactly keen on exploring them. As much as he fucking hated him, he still didn’t like the idea of wandering too far from Benry. He didn’t know what would happen if he despawned in here. 

Gordon swallowed and looked at the escape hatch he had built.

Well, “looked” wasn’t the right word. Examined? Yeah, that felt right. It was hard to look at something that just existed as code in both of their skulls. 

He’d read his little program over and over, and with each readthrough, he felt more nervous. 

Why had it been so easy to make this?

It hadn’t been EASY, of course. It had taken a shitload of effort, Wikipedia research, and general trial and error. He was no programmer. Hell, now that he was thinking about it, he’d probably fight anyone who tried to call him one. Programmers were the assholes who were responsible for his situation in the first place. 

Benry’s newfound code was difficult to parse for a number of reasons. 

For starters, it was Benry’s fucking thoughts, obviously none of it made any goddamned sense. 

But the stuff that did come from the game… 

It seemed to seamlessly connect the game’s script to human thought, somehow. Which made Gordon twitchy. Gordon was very keenly aware that he had very little experience with that latter subject. And all the experience he had with the former was less that of someone making a script, and more the perspective of a prisoner who knew the rules of their jail.

The process had required a fuckton of copying and pasting. He couldn’t write code out for himself for whatever fucking reason. He knew the syntax. He WAS the syntax! But he felt nauseous whenever he tried to put code to the IDE himself. Like he was doing something he really, really wasn’t meant to be doing. Fucking. Super fucking unfair. Honestly, he was going to code more shit after this, just out of spite. 

But the code he’d cobbled together felt… odd. He couldn’t remember what he’d done to make a lot of it. He’d been awash in his frustration, his desperation to make it work, and now that he was looking at it, it felt right, but…

Maybe it’d help if he went step by step. Gordon took a deep, useless breath, and considered his plan once more.

There was a whole lot of the human brain that went unused day to day.

...Not, like, 90% or anything, that was just goddamned madness… but enough for Gordon to piggyback off of. Enough to let him use Benry’s senses. Enough to let him… ugh...

Infest felt like the wrong word. He wasn’t a virus or anything, he was just… a guy. He was just a guy, trying to make the best of a bad situation.

And this definitely was a bad situation. He didn’t want to be connected to Benry. It was infuriating enough, being child-leashed to the player in the game, let alone one that was so goddamned fucking annoying and dangerous, one that seemed to relish every moment he was uncomfortable.

That was what his code promised to do!! Tether him to goddamn Benry again!!

He’d already abandoned the body snatching idea. Gordon didn’t WANT this body. The more he watched Benry, the more weird shit happened. Beggars couldn’t be choosers or whatever, but he REALLY didn’t want to be saddled with whatever eldritch fucking baggage was going down there.  
Unfortunately, there was no guarantee that the code he was working with WOULDN’T have unforeseen consequences like that. Hell, it seemed like the opposite! There was no way that being in fucking Benry’s head wouldn’t have serious repercussions! Maybe it’d make him a weird fucking monster obsessed with the Playstation 3. Maybe he’d become totally obnoxious!

He was finally getting a glimpse of the outside world, and he was still reliant on Benry to keep existing. It felt like a sick fucking joke. Even now, relying on the player’s inputs for his sense of fucking self. It made him want to scream. Except, uh, he really didn’t want to wake up that sleeping figure.

Not to mention, Gordon was already somehow certain that Benry made terrible fucking decisions, no matter what world he was in, what shape. And Gordon was going to feel every bit. 

His only other option was staying in the game.

Well, that wasn’t an option at all, was it? 

Gordon ran the code. Gordon froze. Gordon stared at Benry, fake heart pounding, waiting for the other shoe to drop and Benry to wake up and tear his fucking head off.

Benry mumbled something and rolled over. Gordon relaxed, and examined himself.

At first, he was worried that the code had done nothing, but… no. He was different somehow. Different in a way he didn’t understand. For once in his life, the pile of words he usually had for any given situation was coming up empty.

But that was okay! It was fine! Gordon was making progress! Gordon was moving on up! Now he just had to wait for Benry to wake up!

Gordon stared at the ceiling and wondered about what cake actually tasted like. 

\---

Â̸̡͉̇Ä̵͉̺̝͇̟́̾̓̋̎̔̏͆̓̊̆͂̃̓̕̚͝Å̶̧̛͚̞̪͇̳̹̾͒͑̓̇̾̅̌̂̄͘͘͝͠Ȃ̴̫͎̭͇̻͍͕̘̰͚̮̔͌͒͆̒͘Ą̸̡̰̣̹̘͖̯͔̲͓̟̈́͌̈́͐̆̐̿̀̾A̵̛̪̝͆̀̃͊̅̄͋̅̈͐̒̐͋̈́̃͘À̶̹̥͓̮̜̍̿̐̉̽͛͒̈́̀̉̐̃͝Ã̴̯͉͖̟̮̥A̶̛̳̱̿͊̍̈́͐̾̾̌͆͛ͅĄ̶̯̜̬̜̲̦̪̗̠̌̅̂͘͘Ạ̸̙̣̃͑Â̵͇̣͖̖̟͓͚̹̗̖̎̈́͗̾̈́͠A̶͓̖̤͎̝̎͗͐̈́̇̓̋̂̕̕Ȧ̷̳̼̘͛͋̇͌͊́̀̏̃͂͘̚̚Ǎ̶̡̧̛̭̯̝͖͚̹̪͗̾̉͒́̇̑̋̚Ą̸͎̮͙̪͖͕͔̞̰͉̠̾̉́͛̈́̾͛̆̐͗̊̕͜ͅA̶̘̭̞̥̬͕̳̖̰̣̞̭͋̎̎͆́̌̍́̓͒͠Å̸̢̡̧̢̛͚̖̥̭̦̥͓̬͓̅͒͆̆̓̃̃̎̅͑͝ͅÄ̷̢̡̲̰͖͔̜̱̝͖́̓̅̀́Ą̶̢̧͍̦̯̇͑͒̾̕A̶̡̝̗̙͕̝̰̅͂̂̐́͆͒͋͛̈́̏͝͠A̸̧̨̢̛̛̩͔̟̮̘͇̲̾͒̓͊̈́͝͠ͅ  
̷̦͙̯̬̥̲̦̣̖̎̎̊̍͐̅̽̒̅͊̈́́̍̃͆̚͠  
̷̡͕̫͑̈́͛̍̾͝  
̶͍̄͊̆̽͘͝Ȧ̷̯̣͍̭̥̟͔̯̪̠̆̊̄A̶̧̧̡̡̡͉͕̮̹͒A̷̛̬̭̯̓͋͗̑̅͛̓̂͆͐̊̏͂͋̚Ą̶̨̨̜̬̼̘͇̘̯̱̟͙͖͔̔͆̀̅̏͌̓͐̃̈́͋̑̕ͅĄ̵̛̛̟̙̟̩̺̣͎͌͐̏̄̅͂̈́̎͛͜͜A̷̯̽̊͋̀̓̚͝A̶̝̘̣̠͈̱̭̝͈̳̣̬̬͛͑̊͠͝A̸͎̥̗̤̎̀͘͝͠Ȁ̵̡͉̹̃̽A̵̡̧̙͇͈̺̞̗̬̝͓̯̥͈̤̅̆A̷̢̬̮̰̮̰̫͌͛̉̔͝A̵̛̜̯̗̪̻̠̟̖̻̥͍̮̣̦̋̃̆̏̃̑͐͌̋̾̿̏̑̀A̷̡̨̨̧̺͕̩̳̰̞͉̳͊͛͌͋̈́͒̈́̔̓͘A̵̲͉̪̞̯̳͕̞̳̲͎̥̋̈́̔̒̈́͐̆̉́̃̚̕Ḁ̸͎̫͓̏A̸̢̢̛̙͖̗̮͛͑̓̀̐̒͂͒̕͠Ā̴͕̈́͒̈́͛͆̆̑̿͂͋̽̃̈̽̿̕Ã̴̧̩̹̗̹̫͍̟̻̦̍́͋́̃̋͌͐̄̑͌͝͝Ä̵̡̹͇̩͖̬̪͔̰͚̘̯̗́͆͒͋͒̈̄͒A̵̢̝̻͈͉͕̲͔̹̭̠͉̖̥͍̒̔͐ͅA̶̧̤͔̱͖̪̞͕͚̠̘̻̍̂̓̎̒̌̑͒̕͜A̷̦̞͊͜A̷̧̧̧̛͓͉̝͚̳̞͚̻̲̓̎̓͑͛̈́͌̆̿͝͝Ä̵̢̛̖́̓͌́͂͂̒͛͘͠A̵̧̢̠͍̮̟̠̥͕͜͝͠A̸̯̮̓͐̒̆͊͑́͝͝A̷̙̖͛̾͋̇̊̄͌̅͂̔͐͑͝Ą̸̢͉̦̦̤̜̰̦͎͕̠̠͔̿̂̃͒̑̾͗͗̽̇͌̍̕͝͠Ả̸͙͖̮̙͙̝̮͉̎̌͑́͋͒͝Ả̷̢̛̼͎͎̟̟̳̼͎͍̲̄͛̽͛̄̇͑̂͘͝Ạ̴̢̨̛̫͕͕̼̪̞̖͈̹̱͇̮̺͚̈̐̏̒̈́̈́͂͒͊̚̚͝A̷̝̲͉̣͎͎̝̲͖͙̩͓͈̟͇͗̇̓̉̇̕͜A̵̧̨̛̤̘̺̼̫̖͌̅͌͒̆̋̈́͘̚Ą̴̤̩͉͎͓̈́̀̊͐̚͠Ȧ̷̡̡̛̳͇͈̰̲̭̻̱͚̊̒͌̋́̔͊̀̅̊̈́͘͜͝ͅͅǍ̸̛̘̗͇̩̝̫̺̱͋̔̽̃̽̊̈̀̆̕  
̸̢̡̨̪͚̯̱͕̪͎̘̬͇̰̬͎̊̐ͅ  
̸̢̬̪̹͔̞̺̺̱͈͉͐̓̔̄͜A̶̛̼̞͓͕̲͖̫̪͚̥̤̋͗̆̊̆̂̍̽̓̈́͆̆̾̕̚͜͝ͅA̵̢̨̡̛̪̭̖̟͍̭̙̖͚̙̼̰͋͊͗̐̈́̊̔̚͠ͅĄ̵͓̦̺̼͉̻̣̳̭̜̤̯͎̙̈́͗̋̿̅͑̀͗͌͜͠͝A̴̪̗͇͕̝͗̓̉̆̍̆͋͘͝ͅA̸̢̨͇̭̖̞̼͎̍̿̈́̊̄͋̃̿̉́̑͂̕͘͘͠ͅĂ̸͕̳̖̯͙A̶̡̨̨̡̪̙̖̮̙̭̮͎̲͈̠͕̓͒̍̈͛̋͘Ą̶̮̝͚̩͙̥̇ͅͅA̵̢̢̜͙̱̠̎Ą̷̨̩̯͚̠̦̰͓̼̯̪͕̈͜A̸̺͛̈́̈́̆͗͌̈̉̊͑̚

\---

Gordon Freeman had been completely out of his goddamned depth. 

Still was! Still fucking was. But at least now he could fucking think. Benry was asleep, and he was back in Black Mesa, and he could fucking THINK. Not knowing what that feeling in the dream had been felt like, in retrospect, a warning!

Gordon hurriedly turned to reevaluate the code, fix it, before Benry fucking woke up and he was stuck in him again.

Okay.

So.

What had gone wrong.

Keeping himself apart, he decided. That was the big one. 

It’d been impossible to keep himself separate from Benry’s thoughts, even if he barely remembered any of them now. He’d tried, god, had he tried, but Benry’s thoughts and emotions had been too strong. Worse, his fear had fed into their fear which fed back into his own fear which fed into their anxiety and eventually Gordon had sort of forgotten who he was and Benry had… gotten on with his day, Gordon guessed? Christ. Okay. Sure. 

Okay, so! Not great. Room for improvement, there. Gordon was making a checklist of what he’d have to modify about his program. What next?

The senses. Just. God, the senses… 

It turned out that human senses were muddled and foggy, impossible to interpret for someone who was used to easy instructions. In the game, every polygon had one meaning. Everything was easily flagged for his AI to interpret. That was a chair. That was a pigeon. They were named. They had variables.

In reality, colors and shapes had flooded his vision. They were sharp, sharper than felt possible. It clearly was possible! That was what he’d fucking WANTED! Reality! But at the time, all he could do was stare and desperately hope that somehow, eventually, they’d make sense.

It had been… dark. He thought it was dark. Blues and greens and deep, deep purple, red, a wash of white, right in front of him.

That wasn’t even touching on the other sensations. He had a simulacrum of touch in the game, of course. He could feel pain, after all. But that… that had been… the concept of “texture” had suddenly gained an entirely new meaning.

Okay! So. He needed some functions. Something to make it easier to interpret shit. That was a big one. Something to help him keep separate, split him off from the rest of Benry’s brain, and something to more easily connect colors and shapes to the right inputs. 

And, now that he thought about it, he needed some kind of eject button. He didn’t want to get stuck again if shit went south. As much as he disliked the void, it was preferable to getting stuck in that awful anxiety cycle and forgetting his own name again. 

Gordon looked at the code again. Gordon made some modifications.

...This was still a lot easier than it should be, huh.

...Fuck it. Fuck it! He couldn’t let himself be hung up on something that was, objectively, a blessing. Fuck that! He was just going to be grateful it was so easy. 

Existing couldn’t be THAT hard. 

Otherwise, Benry wouldn’t be able to do it. 

He ran the damn code. He was different again. 

–--

That was a shirt.

It was shaped like a shirt. It was flat on the ground, along with a shape that was a little more difficult to decipher. It was all crumpled up. After a few moments, Gordon decided it could be pants. Which would make the thing next to it boxers. Gross.

Just had to take it one piece at a time. Take it one piece at a time. Don’t freak out! Yet! He’d have all the time in the world to freak out AFTER the test. He could freak out after he’d fucking figured out how EYES worked. 

Gordon was glad the room was so dark, even if it was only because Benry was a disgusting gamer who liked to torture innocent pixels; Gordon had no idea how he’d handle real sunlight. Even just the light from the screen across the room felt blaring. And… why did his mouth taste like cotton? He thought that was what that flavor was?? It was soft and bland and dry. The first taste he could actually parse, and it was basically nothing. 

Well... good? He supposed? Even just that flavor was hard to deal with. Real taste was fucking weird. As fucking usual, he was reminded that he really, really was not built for this shit. The electric fucking shock he’d gotten from whatever awful liquid was in that black can Benry kept drinking out of had almost fucking crashed him. What the hell kind of soda was THAT? Whatever the fuck soda tasted like in the game, it was NOTHING compared to THAT.

Nope, one at a time, one at a time. Gordon named the things he could see, one by one. Empty cans. Mugs. Dirty dishes… yeesh, not exactly painting a pretty picture, here. Warm red light from a heat lamp in the corner, pointed at a tank.

It was only in the middle of pointing at a faded poster of Wreck-It Ralph that he realized he had a body. He stared down in disbelief and delight.

...Kind of!! He kind of had a body! He definitely had some kind of projection! But, fuck, he was fucking TAKING IT! Score one for Gordon! It wasn’t solid, but he had a shape he could move. Hell, it could do lunges! And fall over! Like an idiot! He felt no pain as his head barreled through the flat surface that could only be a mattress on the floor, but he was glad that Benry didn’t seem to be able to see him or hear him. He had no idea why he had a form! Hypothesises could wait! He was just glad he wasn’t entirely trapped in Benry’s skull. 

...But he was.

And this body had a lot of room for improvement.

After the giddiness of NOT being trapped faded, he examined himself more closely. He stared down at his hands. At his mitts. At his model. Something about it felt… really dissatisfying. Next to reality, he was definitely not up to snuff. Light didn’t hit him right. His textures were blurred; no, not just that, he didn’t have any texture. Not like that chair did.

Wait. Chair? 

Gordon came to the realization that the reason the screen felt so blaring was because the figure whose senses he was using was staring into it, as if in a trance. 

He was having trouble interpreting what was on the screen. More shapes. But Benry was so into it, even with his new wall between them, there was a little bit of spill-over. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really anything he cared about. What the fuck was Benry WATCHING? Some awful anime about a little girl who wanted to be a duck and also a ballerina? The hell? 

Okay. Yeah. 

No, yeah, he was getting frustrated. He wasn’t going to let it ruin his good mood! He’d still made a lot of progress. But he was… he was going to have to figure out something. He wasn’t going to rot in here watching anime all fucking day. 

Maybe he could… manipulate Benry’s actions, somehow. He didn’t really want to mess with Benry’s core programming right away, like, he was smart, but he knew he wasn’t THAT smart. He was definitely going to fuck it up somehow. But, like, Christ, if this continued, he wasn’t going to have a fucking choice, he refused to be tethered to this--

Benry lifted a roll of toilet paper off the desk. 

Gordon’s racing thoughts went quiet as he watched.

Benry tore off a square. 

Contemplated it for a moment.

Gordon watched as Benry ate a fucking square of toilet paper. 

Well. 

That was one mystery down. 

Yeah no fuck this. Gordon had to get out of Benry’s fucking qualia. But how? Another body, maybe? That seemed like a good plan? Actually that felt like a REALLY good plan. Maybe he could jump to someone else? Somehow? Maybe?? Hell, maybe more than one person. As much as he hated it, as much as he deluded himself into thinking he was a person, he was self-learning AI. He grew more and more person-like the more he interacted with others. And he really, REALLY needed more fucking perspectives on what humans were MEANT to act and think like. 

Because, uh, this wasn’t fucking it. Gordon really didn’t want whatever the hell THIS was to rub off on him. What kind of idiot ATE TOILET PAPER?? THERE WAS ACTUAL FOOD IN THE APARTMENT. GORDON WANTED. FOOD. GORDON NEED MEAL. 

Benry shuddered a little and rubbed at his forehead. That broke Gordon out of his anger. 

...Okay! He was a scientist, right? Theoretically a physicist! Hahah. He could come up with some ideas. Some theories. Gordon began to pace around the room. Gordon tapped his cheek. Gordon bounced his fist. Benry didn’t look up. Gordon wasn’t really THERE, after all. God, he probably only HAD this fake body because his fucking code wasn’t meant to run without some kind of vessel. Couldn’t exactly use a crowbar without hands. But pacing distracted him from the FUCKING duck anime.

Okay, first point of info; the tether went both ways! 

That was… obvious, really. Tautological. But he had a tool. How could he use it. How could he manipulate Benry into going the fuck outside.

Gordon contemplated Benry’s thoughts. He didn’t really want to, but it felt important. Just for the sake of getting more information.

Benry was… really hung up on that anime. Gordon refused to think about it. He was just here for the nitty-gritty. 

Benry’s brain wasn’t exactly normal. It never had been, it was Benry after all. But it was also different than the player had felt at the beginning of the game. He wasn’t sure how he knew, it just… it didn’t feel right. 

Not knowing how he knew that also didn’t fucking sit well with him in the slightest, but he was going to move past that for now! Not relevant. 

Ugh, Gordon didn’t have enough information. He’d just barely figured out fucking SIGHT. How the hell was he meant to--

Benry was standing up. Benry was stretching. Gordon felt it as if it was his own knees creaking, his own muscles pulling. Benry, finally, finally exited the bedroom. The dark room suddenly felt a whole lot darker and both Gordon and Benry groaned as the natural light from the windows hit them. Shit, did Benry have blackout curtains? It seemed like it?

Gordon turned. Gordon finally got a good look at his host for the first time. Finally got a look at what a human actually looked like. Gordon stared and committed every little bit to memory.

...He noticed Benry's appearence in the same way he’d been cataloging else he’d seen so far. Benry wasn’t special or anything.

Benry was... short. 

Or at least, shorter than he was. Benry was built solidly; not like Gordon’s protagonist physique, just… solid. Stocky. Benry had a large nose, a round jaw, thick eyebrows...

Benry had sallow, faded skin from staying indoors all day, and dark, dark circles under his eyes. Benry had a lot of hair—Oh, god, that was disgusting. Now that Gordon had noticed it, the feeling of grease on his scalp, he fucking wished he hadn’t. Benry didn’t seem to fucking mind! Maybe he could piggyback off that energy! Stop feeling like he’d rubbed a fucking pizza on his head! 

Gordon glanced around the hallway, too. He was very curious. He technically knew what houses were supposed to be like. He had vague memories of being in them. And he’d been in what felt like hundreds of hallways in Black Mesa. And this one really, really wasn’t that impressive… there was an ominous stain on the ceiling, and the carpet was thick with dust. Still, he couldn’t help but stare at everything, doing his best to file it away. 

This was reality, Gordon. What you’d been desperate for. Pay attention.

…

Wait, hold on, that was the bathroom.

Gordon fled to the void of the computer before he could feel anything else. 

\---

Okay, so, after that, Gordon had taken another look at his eject button. Maybe it didn’t have to be an eject button. Maybe he could just… briefly cut off all sensation to himself until it was safe to start fucking perceiving things again. Because he was sure the bathroom thing was going to keep happening, and he really didn’t want to have to flee into the computer and wait for Benry to wake up whenever it did.

Just… god. Just had to keep moving forward! He was back in the fake Black Mesa, and he was feeling really fucking glad he’d figured out how to escape from the computer, because the scheduled date for the next play session had come and gone, and it didn’t look like Benry had any intention of playing again for a while. Fucking asshole was just gonna leave him trapped here, huh? He’d fucking see about that.

Okay. He needed a way to leap to other people. That much was for certain. He refused to be stuck with Benry.

...How the fuck was he going to do that. 

This roadblock had occupied a full fucking night’s worth of time and generated a whole lot of fucking frustration. Gordon had been a little surprised when Benry had waken up and he was plunged back into reality. He’d been even more surprised at what came next.

That conversation with Tommy had been a total trip. At the time, he’d been so baffled, so flooded with sensation, he could barely process it. It was only with retrospect that it started to make any level of sense. 

This was not helped by the fact it’d been the first time Benry had been out of the house since Gordon had gotten his in his senses. 

Even in the apartment, Gordon couldn’t help but be fascinated by little things, like how light filtered through a bottle of dish soap, or off pieces of metal… but once he got outside? He felt like a little kid. Maybe this was what being a kid was like for real. Everything was so new and insane and interesting. It was just… Gordon always tried to keep his senses sharp, notice anything useful, anything he could use to help himself, and there was just…

There was so much to notice, now. How things moved. Always different, never the exact same motion twice. Animals and plants, just, everywhere, doing their own things, completely separate from him, in completely unique ways. Honestly, they bore almost no resemblance to the cardboard cutouts that populated Black Mesa. The drive over had been overwhelming, and he couldn’t help but be pissed that Benry’s rambling nonsense almost ruined it. There was a REAL-LIFE dog there and he couldn’t even pet her. She didn’t even know he was there.

God, he hadn’t even touched on SMELL. Smell was WILD. He could barely comprehend it. Maybe it was for the best that Benry apparently loved eating paper, because whatever the hell those little brown balls had been, it’d been too much. It was great, yeah, but holy SHIT. 

The conversation in the parking lot had been… god, that was weird, shit, where to START? Every stage of the conversation felt both vitally important and also completely mind-shattering and he was still! Trying to fucking pay attention while the taste of shitty ground beef and flavor mix coated his tongue!

Tommy being somehow related to an AI (and Gordon wasn't letting himself think about WHICH one, he had ENOUGH on his fucking plate,) had almost made him fucking crash, and he wasn’t sure if that feeling was entirely from himself, or if Benry’s brain also melting out his ears had somehow affected his processing, gave Gordon less brain RAM to work with. 

What did that even mean, anyway? An AI raising a real person?? How had that happened? What the hell did they even talk about? Gordon was filled with questions! No answers, though, because Benry hadn’t seen fit to ask any. Asshole. Hell, Benry had been kind of shitty about it! Gordon had already known he was a dick, but that fake comment about had stung. He couldn’t wait to show him how real he could be. 

The feedback from Tommy’s dad was helpful, though, and Gordon had instantly started constructing theories… but somehow, it didn’t feel quite right. He couldn’t put his finger on it. The explanation was just too clean for whatever the hell was going on. Benry had clearly been weird and alien even before the game had gotten its grubby mitts into his brain folds.

Tommy’s guilt about the situation made Gordon feel… nothing. Whatever. Should have thought about it before you let BENRY in to start messing with his head. Actions have consequences, bitch. 

And then Benry’s response had just pissed him off badly. Oh, yeah, be guilty about fucking tormenting me after it has consequences, yeah, sure. Gordon felt REAL fucking bad for him.

The two had exchanged some sappy words, yada yada yada...

Tommy had suggested talking to him, and that idea had apparently been so goddamn brain-melting for Benry, the world had despawned. Just for a moment.

Honestly, Gordon had been waiting for it. 

Benry had no goddamned control over his powers like this. Gordon hadn’t noticed either, at first, as beholden to Benry’s perception as he was, but this fucking blip had been impossible to miss. Benry kept making things disappear and didn’t seem to realize he was doing it. Tommy didn’t seem to realize either. Benry didn’t realize it now. He just moved on. 

But Gordon did. Gordon saw. And he’d been scared, but that fear was nothing compared to how he felt at what happened next. Fear was just his default state.

Gordon’s laughed long and hard as he remembered how Benry had rambled about how HE, apparently, was the source of all his problems.


End file.
